


Classified

by magneticdice



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Drinking, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming, Shameless Big Bang, cheating (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-20 16:27:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 39,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2435372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magneticdice/pseuds/magneticdice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shameless Big Bang Round 2 submission for the prompt from warm-mouth: “AU - Ian can't afford his apartment so he advertises for a roommate and Mickey applies”. Roommates AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's been ridiculously difficult to find the time to write this. my baby is a monster now that she is mobile... and she does NOT stop opening and closing the laptop lid, or scratching at the keyboard, or poking the screen (because she thinks things will happen like they do on the ipad). it's impossible.
> 
> i will post the whole fic over the course of this weekend. i wanna thank Katie, Maia and Tammy for reading it over and giving me feedback, and also thanks to Ashling for the awesome prompt.
> 
> check out the art by queermccoy [here](http://queermccoy.tumblr.com/post/99685077768/for-magneticdices-awesome-bigbang-fic-classified)!

_Ian Gallagher had always lived in a full house, surrounded by family, so when he got his own apartment downtown, it took some getting used to._

It was only his first night on his own, and Ian couldn’t relax. Something was nagging at him, keeping him from sleep. He looked at the alarm clock beside the bed; it was only 10 ‒ still early, by Gallagher standards. With a start, he realized he hadn’t said goodnight to his siblings. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his sister’s cell.

“Ian! Ian!” Liam shouted from the other end of the line. Ian smiled, feeling instantly at home just by hearing the little kindergartener answer so happily.

The next voice Ian heard was Fiona’s. She must have heard their little brother’s screaming and picked up the phone. “Hey kiddo, hold on a sec‒ _CARL!_ I SAID LEAVE DEBBIE ALONE!” she screamed before he even had a chance to speak. He smiled at the apparent chaos of his home, already missing it. “How’s it going?” Fiona asked. “Did Lip finish helping you unpack?”

“Yeah, he left ‘bout an hour ago. Said he had to get back to the robotics lab for some kind competition,” he informed her, though what his brother and his assorted nerdy friends would _really_ be doing in the university’s lab on a Sunday night was beyond Ian. “What’s going on there?” he wondered, still hearing way too much noise in the background.

Fiona sighed. “Debs is upstairs with a friend ‒ a _boy_ ‒” she amended, “from school, and Carl won’t stop banging on her bedroom door, making kissing noises… and of course Liam is all riled up now because he has to know everything that’s going on. Welcome to another night in the Gallagher house of endless drama. Hey, shouldn’t you be sleeping? Your first class tomorrow’s an early one, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” he admitted, albeit reluctantly.

“Well, what’re you waiting for?! Go on, get off the phone and get your ass to sleep!” Fiona ordered with a laugh. Of course his sister would pick up on his nerves, even over the phone. “I’ll tell them all you said goodnight as soon as things calm down a bit. Good luck tomorrow! Call me when you get back to your apartment after class,” she told him. “Oh, and don’t forget to take your meds,” she added, always the parent.

“I already did,” he assured her.

“Good. Hey, before you go, you got a postcard from Nick today. Want me to send it over to your new place?”

Ian sighed audibly. “No, s’fine,” he muttered. “I’ll just get it next time I’m over. ‘Night.”

He closed the phone and plugged it into the charger beside his bed before turning the light off, but the room was still perfectly illuminated by the city’s lights, streaming in unhindered through the tall windows. Ian sighed again and made a mental note to add “curtains” to the long list of things he still needed to buy in order to make his new apartment livable.

Nick had been Ian’s best friend since high school. They’d met in Junior ROTC and had hit it off right away. He considered him his best friend, and having a friend who was also gay had helped Ian become more comfortable with himself and who he was. Nick had been there for Ian throughout his numerous failed relationships, including Kash and Ned, and had been the first one to notice when Ian’s manic symptoms started to manifest in their senior year.

The problem was that Nick had gotten in to West Point, the school of Ian’s dreams, and in four years, he would be an officer on active duty, stationed wherever the government decided to send him.

Ian tried not to think about it much. He was happy for Nick… he really was… but that didn’t stop him from feeling like a terrible person whenever he did think about it, because he knew deep down that he was jealous of his best friend for doing what he couldn’t.

He stared around his nearly empty bedroom. Most of his things were still in the boxes he’d left untouched in the corner of the living room. It felt strange being surrounded by the plain, white walls, a sharp contrast to the many posters he and his brothers had had plastered all over their walls growing up.

Ian let out a deep breath, and it felt strangely good to do so. If he was being honest with himself, he almost felt _relieved_ , and was surprised by the feeling. Gone were the constant reminders of the military bullshit he’d been so obsessed with throughout his teens; the fact that his dreams of becoming an officer would never become reality wouldn’t be the first thing he saw in the mornings and the last thing he looked at before going to sleep. He hadn’t realized the effect looking at those posters day-in and day-out had been taking on him until this moment.

He tried to concentrate on happier thoughts, like the fact that when he woke up the next morning, it would be his first day of college. Lip had set the bar high, what with getting a full scholarship and all, but even without a full ride, Ian hadn’t done too badly. He’d spent most of his senior year building up his grades and applying for scholarships, and had actually managed to get enough of them to cover his tuition. He used his savings from bartending all summer and dancing at the club to put a deposit down on his new apartment.

_“His new apartment...”_ The whole concept felt so foreign to him. He would have never even found such a nice place without Jimmy’s dad’s help and the magic of rent control. The place wasn’t too over the top, but most importantly, it was clean and even had a small office that he was looking forward to using after years of having to do his homework on his bed or on the kitchen table.

He’d used what little money he had left to buy second-hand furniture to fill up the place, focusing on the essentials: a dresser, table and chairs. Ned had left him a bed frame and mattress when he’d moved out, and although it was a little weird to use an ex’s bed, Ian was still grateful to have one less expense.

He knew it was going to be difficult being in school full-time while still working nights, but he was determined to make it work. He closed his eyes and turned away from the windows in an attempt to block out the lights, and eventually fell asleep once thoughts of cramped bedrooms, fighting siblings, failed dreams, faraway friends and the overwhelming amount of work he had ahead of him slipped away from his mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re seriously gonna get a roommate?” Lip asked him for what seemed like the tenth time.

_“You’re seriously gonna get a roommate?” Lip asked him for what seemed like the tenth time._

“I have to,” Ian answered. He’d been living on his own for a month already, but even with all the hours he was putting in at the club, he barely had enough money left for groceries, let alone rent. It was hard to admit it, but if Ian didn’t want to move back to the South Side, he would have to accept the fact that he needed a roommate.

“We’re not all brainiacs like you...” he teased, shoving Lip with his shoulder. “I actually have to study, and I don’t have time to pick up any more extra shifts.”

Lip chuckled and reclined on the couch, taking care not to let his beer tilt back with him. “What, only so many hours you can shake your ass for money?” Ian flipped him off but Lip didn’t even notice the gesture. “Thought you were all excited about having an office,” he continued.

“Dude, I’m barely even here. Class, library, work, then rinse and repeat. All I do is sleep here.” He took a sip of his own beer while he watched his brother for a reaction.

Lip only shrugged and returned his attention to the television.

Ian watched him while trying to stifle his jealously. It wasn’t fair at all. His brother got to live on campus and the only job he needed was whatever his work-study required of him. His girlfriend took care of basically everything else, from paying for his cell phone to planning out his bathroom breaks. Ian wasn’t sure he could deal with anyone controlling his life like that, but if the trade-off was financial security, he could see the appeal.

He reached over to his backpack and pulled out the copy of the local paper he’d bought earlier on from the school cafeteria. “Wanna see the ad?”

Lip nearly choked on the sip of beer he’d been in the middle of taking. He coughed a couple of times and cleared his throat, recovering quickly. “You placed an ad?” Lip asked incredulously. “Like, a _real_ fucking advertisement? In the _newspaper_?!”

Ian frowned but handed the paper over to his older brother, already open to the proper page of the Classified section.

WEST LOOP, CHICAGO. Non-Furn Rm for rent. Shared kitchen/bath. Proximity to Blue, Green and Pink L lines; Union & Ogilvie stations. $500/mo, 1mo rent + 1mo sec. req’d. Call 312-555-0619 for appt. NO PETS.

“First of all, no one reads the paper anymore.” Lip lazily tossed the newspaper back to Ian. The pages fluttered and came apart before even making it back to the redhead. Ian frowned and bent down to collect the fallen papers at the foot of the couch. “Second, nobody’s gonna pay five hundred bucks a month for that tiny room,” Lip told him with a laugh, pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the office behind them. “Why didn’t you just put it on craigslist?”

“Not everyone has a computer, jerk. Plus, _I_ like to read the paper,” he added defensively.

“Looking at the comics doesn’t count as reading, dork.”

Ian felt his cheeks redden. He wanted to argue, to tell his brother that he actually read the paper ‒ or rather, the Classified ads, because he found them highly entertaining. Instead, he rolled up the newspaper pages he’d collected and hit Lip on the back of the head with a loud thwack. “Shut up,” he muttered, but his words were lost under his brother’s laughter.

“What does Nick think of you getting a roommate?” Lip asked once he’d calmed down.

Ian rolled his eyes. “Again with this shit? It doesn’t matter what Nick thinks.” No matter how many times he told his brother that there was nothing going on between him and Nick, Lip would still bring it up, again and again.

“You sure your boyfriend knows that?” Lip egged on. All of the Gallaghers knew that Nick had a thing for Ian. Hell, even _Ian_ knew that Nick was in love with him; but, unfortunately for Nick, Ian hadn’t been interesting in him in that way.

“God, for the last time, he is _not_ my boyfriend. Can you please just let it go?”

It wasn’t like it actually mattered. Even if they _had_ been dating, it wouldn’t have worked out. With Nick away at West Point Academy for the next four years and then on duty, it would have been nearly impossible to see each other. What kind of relationship would have survived that?

They hadn’t talked much in the month since Nick had flown out to New York, and Ian tried not to think about it much. He was somewhat glad he didn’t have to think about it. He suddenly felt it again in his chest; the aching that he felt every time he thought about the army. It wasn’t fair. Everyone knew it wasn’t fair. He would understand if he was still manic or in the middle of a low phase, but he was medicated now, his moods stable. It wasn’t fair that he would be disqualified from even entering the army just because of his disorder.

He could feel himself slipping again, right into the place he didn’t want to go. He wanted to pretend things were alright. New apartment, new classes, new life: those were the things he _wanted_ to focus on. Ian looked at Lip, whose attention was on the TV. His brother had no idea how his words and the mention of Nick had affected him. He checked his phone for the time, calculating the hours left until the evening dose of his medication.   
That night, he welcomed the small tremors and blurry vision that plagued him after he swallowed down the small pills. At least they told him that the medicine was doing _something_. He wasn’t losing it. He wasn’t going to end up like Monica. He was going to be fine. He just had to ride it out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Putting the ad in the paper was the easy part. Filtering through the voicemails and the corresponding freaks who showed up to look at the apartment took a lot longer.

_Putting the ad in the paper was the easy part. Filtering through the voicemails and the corresponding freaks who showed up to look at the apartment took a lot longer._

“Seriously, Lip. I need you to be here when the next guy comes…” Ian all but pleaded into the phone. He’d just gotten rid of the last guy that wanted to see the room and was feeling pretty anxious. He had another visit scheduled in an hour and would feel a lot better if someone else was around before the next weirdo showed up.

“So, what? I’m supposed to cancel my plans tonight because my little brother fucked up and invited some freaks into his apartment? What makes you think my being there will make a difference? A murderer will have no problem just murdering me too…”

Ian groaned into the phone. “Oh come on… No one’s gonna get murdered. That guy was just a little... _creepy_. I swear he sounded normal on the phone,” he reasoned. The thick-rimmed glasses and black, slicked-back hair had reminded Ian of evil Sylar from the show “Heroes”. Ian shivered just from thinking about him again; he’d looked like the kind of person who might cut you into little pieces in the middle of the night just for the fun of it.

It was a good thing he’d taken Nick’s advice and had decided against telling Lip about the other people who’d stopped by earlier that day. Ian had called his best friend earlier and they’d finally had a chance to really catch up. Nick seemed really interested about Ian’s apartment woes, so Ian had obliged and told him everything.

The first guy, Pedro, was Latino and had three teardrops tattooed under the outer corner of his right eye. Ian would be eternally grateful to Fiona for insisting he put a chain lock and a deadbolt on his door. God only knew which gang the guy belonged to, and whether or not Ian would “make the list” for not allowing him in...

The next guy to show up called himself Milk-E Way and insisted that he was going to be the next Eminem. Ian barely managed to get him out, and that was only after reluctantly accepting the guy’s demo CD.

There had only been one girl, Tiffany, who called about the ad. She sounded really nice ‒ even normal on the phone ‒ but it became apparent pretty early on that she was a prostitute. Ian didn’t have anything against hookers; hell, half of the other guys at the club left with customers at the end of the night, but Tiffany had the balls to ask Ian what his policy was on bringing “guests” over… That, and the obvious track marks on her arms just didn’t sit well with him.

In fact, the only [relatively] normal people who’d come to take a look at the apartment had lost all interest the moment they’d seen the size of the room. Ian was starting to feel like Lip had been right about the rent being too high, but Nick had urged him to just be more careful and to call Lip for backup.

“Please come over,” he asked again, kicking himself for practically begging. “I’ve got a case of beer and I’ll pay for dinner.”

“Alcohol _and_ food? Wow, you must really be desperate.”

Ian fought down his comeback. He really needed Lip’s help, and he knew a sarcastic response wouldn’t be the best way to get it. “I’ll order you a large, deep-dish pizza, _with mushrooms_ ,” he gritted out. Ian absolutely hated mushrooms, but Lip loved them.

His brother chuckled on the other end of the line. “Alright, alright. Gimme twenty minutes,” Lip said.

Ian looked at the time on his phone and sighed. “Okay, but if the pizza gets here first, I’m starting without you.”

“What kind of gratitude is that?!” Lip shouted into the phone just as Ian hung up on him. He quickly dialed the local delivery place he’d grown attached to over the course of the past few weeks and ordered two pies: one with mushrooms for his brother and one with pepperoni and extra cheese for himself.

Ian had just enough time to take a quick shower before the doorbell rang. He grabbed a towel to wrap around his waist on his way out of the bathroom and quickly walked towards the front door. “Just a sec!” he shouted, nearly slipping on the kitchen tiles in his haste. Without thinking, he slid the chain open and unbolted the door to let Lip in, only the man standing in the hallway was _not_ his brother.

“Uh, hi…” the stranger said, awkwardly biting his bottom lip with his teeth as he took in the nearly-naked redhead in front of him. “I’m Mickey…” He stared at Ian expectantly. “Milkovich…” he added, when Ian still hadn’t responded or acknowledged that he’d heard him in away way. “I’m here to see the spare room?” he said, more of a question than a statement.

Ian was mesmerized by the guy ‒ by Mickey. He was undeniably attractive; so attractive, in fact, that it was _unfair_. A blush crept onto the stranger’s pale skin and he ran a hand through his dark hair, brushing a loose strand away from his blue eyes, which uncomfortably darted from side to side in an obvious effort to look anywhere except at a half-naked Ian.

Mickey cleared his throat in the awkward silence that ensued. Ian was fully aware that Mickey was waiting for an answer from him, or any indication that he had come to the right place. He tried to give some kind of intelligible reply but his brain had apparently shut down. Instead, he opened and close his mouth repeatedly, like some sort of guppy.

“Is this the right apartment? The guy on the phone said 6H…” He raised a questioning eyebrow and Ian’s attention was drawn back to those eyes again. Those beautiful, bright blue oceans that he wanted to just dive right into.

“Guess I got the address wrong or something,” Mickey mumbled and took a step back, ready to leave. As he turned to go, Ian noticed the fresh bruising and scabbed over cuts on the far side of Mickey’s temple and brow. He briefly wondered who would dare to hurt such a beautiful face.

“I’m 6H!” Ian called after him. “I mean, yeah, yes… this is 6H,” he stuttered. It would have been enough of an answer. He could have stepped aside and let Mickey in, but of course, once he started babbling, it was impossible to stop. “I have a room. An empty room. Two rooms. I mean, I have a room for myself and there’s another empty room.” He wanted to slam his head into the wall to clear it or to stop the onslaught of words that were stupidly rolling out of his mouth of their own accord. Either would have worked, but neither did, and he couldn’t stop from sounding like an absolute idiot.

“Come in. Let’s go to the bedroom. I mean,” he laughed nervously, “come in and I’ll show you the room.” Ian felt the heat on his cheeks and knew he must be turning redder with each passing second.

Mickey eyed him like he was on something, but eventually shrugged his shoulders and walked past Ian, into the room. The apartment was an open-concept space, with a clean, standard kitchen and dinette, as well as a decently sized living room. Ian had been able to fit in two mismatched couches, a coffee table and a small TV, the latter a gift from Kev and Vee after they’d inherited the Alibi room and all of its former owner’s old crap. Mickey looked around the place, seeming to take it all in.

Mickey’s gaze lingered on Ian more than once and Ian was suddenly all too aware of the fact that he was standing in only a towel.

“Uh, can you wait here a sec? I’m just gonna grab a shirt…” Ian explained. He felt bad about leaving Mickey alone; he didn’t want the man to feel like Ian was being rude, but he figured the tour would probably go a lot smoother if he was clothed. “Feel free to look around,” he called over his shoulder.

Ian half-ran to his bedroom and practically tore open his dresser drawers. Boxers, check. Socks, check. Jeans, check. T-shirt, check. He wanted ‒ no, _needed_ to get back to Mickey as quickly as possible, but it was like his brain had turned off; he fell backwards onto the bed when he realized he’d put both of his feet through the same pant leg.

“Get it together, Ian. Breathe,” he muttered to himself as he pulled the jeans down and tried again. Okay, Mickey was attractive. That wasn’t even a question, but it was not a reason for him to act like a total loser, babbling like a buffoon and not being able to control his own body.

Not being in control wasn’t a good feeling. Ian had struggled with his brain and his body not doing what he wanted them to do for the better part of a year now, but his current combination of meds seemed to be keeping his mood relatively balanced. The intense attraction he felt towards Mickey was actually scaring the crap out of him, because it reminded him of how he felt when he’d gone through his first manic phase.

Ian’s head shot up at the sound of breaking glass. He buttoned his pants as ran back to the living room in a panic and was surprised to see Lip standing in the kitchen, aiming a broken vase at Mickey. The brunet, in contrast, stood calmly at the center of the living room, arms crossed.

“Call the cops, Ian,” his brother shouted after making eye contact with him.

“What the fuck? What the hell are you doing, Lip?” Ian screamed back, eyes wide and heart pounding from the intensity of the sudden situation.

“I caught this asshole breaking in,” Lip said, motioning towards Mickey with the glass.

Realization dawned on Ian. Lip thought Mickey was an intruder, someone who had broken into his apartment and was trying to rob him. “Oh my God, put that down!” he said to Lip. “He’s here to see the apartment!”

Lip hesitated for moment before turning to look at Ian in confusion. “ _What_?”

“The spare room…? The whole reason I asked you to come over?!”

He could see the gears in his brother’s head slowly starting to turn as the older boy heard and understood Ian’s words.

“You said the next appointment wasn’t for another hour…”

“Yeah, well, it took me less time that I thought it would to take the train here,” Mickey said, speaking for the first time since Ian had joined them. Ian looked at the man, amazed by how calm and unphased he was by what was going on.

“So you _let_ this thug in?” Lip continued, still not accepting Ian’s explanation. Mickey bristled at the name but Lip clearly ignored him, his focus on Ian.

He fervently nodded to Lip, eyeing the shard of glass in his brother’s clenched fist. Fiona was going to be _pissed_ when she found out it had been broken. She’d made a huge deal about buying him a really “classy” house-warming gift.

Ian took a deep breath and decided the first thing he needed to do was disarm Lip, and years of ROTC had prepared him to do it without hurting his brother, at least not _too_ badly. He grabbed Lip’s wrist and held it tightly while he swung his arm down in a wide arch and connected with his brother’s forearm. Lip’s fingers immediately loosened their grip on the makeshift weapon as soon as the precise blow was delivered. He grabbed a dish rag and carefully picked up the glass off of the floor, then tossed it into the trash. With that done, Ian let out a breath, finally able to relax a fraction.

“Seriously, Lip. What the hell?”

Lip scowled at him. “The front door was unlocked, and then _this_ guy was standing inside, all alone, casing the place. What’d you expect me to think?”

“Not that he was robbing me, Christ!” Ian stepped up beside Lip and inspected his brother’s hand for any cuts. “I thought _I_ was supposed to be the crazy one in the family,” he told him quietly. He’d hoped a joke would help make light of things, but Lip didn’t even crack a smile. He was still suspiciously eyeing Mickey. Beautiful, dazzling, fucking _hot_ Mickey, who was still standing in the middle of the living room.

Ian shook his head imperceptibly, berating his brain (and his dick) yet again for losing focus. “Hey, listen,” he told Lip as he threw the rag back into the sink and carefully guided his brother away from the mess in the kitchen. “I’ve got this, okay? I’ll clean this shit up later,” he waved his arm around in the general direction of the rest of the apartment, encompassing the shattered pieces on the floor, “and I’ll give you a call later, okay? Say hi to Amanda for me. Bye!” He practically pushed a stunned Lip out of his apartment, not waiting for a reply, locking and bolting the door behind him.

He turned around and leaned back against the door, returning his attention to Mickey.  
“Sorry about that,” Ian huffed out. He was out of breath from all of the drama but still managed to flash Mickey a smile. And really, how could he _not_ smile when he had Mickey standing in his apartment, watching him intently with both eyebrows arched. “Can we try this again? I’m Ian.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Lip gone, Ian felt like he could start over, but a thought suddenly popped into his head: just because Mickey was there didn’t mean he’d actually want to rent the room.

_With Lip gone, Ian felt like he could start over, but a thought suddenly popped into his head: just because Mickey was there didn’t mean he’d actually want to rent the room._

After kicking Lip out, Ian felt a little better. Mickey seemed just as calm as he had been earlier, when Lip had been threatening him, and that confused Ian. Growing up in the South Side, he had learned to assess danger and keep a cool head in these kinds of situations, but Mickey was taking it to a whole different level.

“So, um… you okay?” he wondered.

Mickey’s attention broke from his examination of the room and landed on Ian. “That was your brother?” he asked, not answering the question. Ian nodded. “Tell him it’s gonna take a lot more than a stupid piece of glass for his punk ass to intimidate me,” he said, cracking his knuckles four at a time with a quick flex of each of his hands. Ian noticed Mickey’s tattoos for the first time and swallowed.

Mickey noted the direction of his gaze and their eyes locked. He flashed Ian a rare grin, one that conveyed warning and mischief and amusement, all at the same time. Ian’s knees felt like jelly and it was a miracle he didn’t just melt into a puddle of useless jelly there an then.

“The room’s this way,” he managed to say, finally tearing his eyes away from Mickey. He led the older man to what had been his office only a couple of days prior. He and Lip had spent the weekend emptying the room of its lone desk, computer chair and bookcase, which were now crammed into Ian’s bedroom. It had taken them even longer to haul in Ian’s old twin bed and mattress, even with the help of Kev and his pick-up truck.

Mickey walked in while Ian hung back and leaned against the doorway, giving him space to look around. He flicked the light switch on but frowned when nothing happened.

“I’m waiting for the super to fix that,” Ian explained.

Mickey threw a slight nod in his direction then walked further into the room. He peered into the closet through its open door, then walked over to the single window and opened it. There was a small landing just outside the window for the fire escape. Each floor had one, and Ian was unlucky enough to get the apartment whose view was blocked by the ugly, rusted, metal bars. He cringed as he watched Mickey stick his head out of the window and look around, knowing that the obstructed view had been one of the things the other people he’d shown the room to had complained about.

Mickey stood in the dark room for a couple of minutes before he finally spoke to Ian. “I thought the ad said the room was non-furnished…”

“Oh, well…” he looked down guiltily, not having had enough spare cash to fix the ad. “The first few guys who came to look at the place thought that, for five hundred bucks, it needed to be furnished, so I brought in my old bed,” he said nervously. “I can take the bed out if you don’t want it or if you’d rather bring your own...”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Mickey told him. “It’ll save me the trouble of having to buy one.”

 

Ian’s ears perked up at that. “Does that mean you’ll take it?” he wondered.

Mickey looked at him hard for a few endless moments, during which Ian held his breath the entire time, before shrugging his shoulders. “I need a place that’s available right away and move-in ready. This fits the bill.”

Ian tried not to let his excitement show. He really tried to hide his glee, but that was nearly impossible as his smile spread wide, growing from ear to ear. He was hopeless…

“Great!” he breathed, overenthusiastically. God, he was such a spaz. Now came the hard part: talking about rent. “So, uh... there’s just the matter of‒”

The doorbell chimed again, and Ian’s brows knit together in confusion. He didn’t think Lip would come back so quickly, especially not after Ian had thrown him out the way he had.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Mickey before rushing to the door, leaving the brunet in the spare room. This time he unbolted the door and opened it without removing the chain. It was the pizza delivery guy.

“Did your brother come back to keep an eye on me?” Mickey said mockingly from right behind him, startling Ian and causing him to push the door shut harder than he’d wanted to.

He regained his bearings and gave Mickey another nervous chuckle. “Heh, no, it’s the pizza,” he told him as he slid the chain out and opened the door once again. Ian paid the delivery guy and accepted the boxes. He locked the door again and turned to put them down on the kitchen counter.

He suddenly had a thought. “I ordered way too much food… You hungry?”

Mickey thoughtfully licked his lips and Ian all but swooned. The brunet walked over to the counter and opened the top box, but recoiled once he saw what was inside. “Mushrooms? That’s fuckin’ disgusting.”

“Oh! No, that was for Lip,” he explained quickly. Without hesitation, Ian grabbed the top box and tossed it into the garbage can. “This one’s pepperoni and extra cheese!” He opened the second box to prove his point.

Mickey grinned again. “You’re a freak, man. Could’a just put the other pie into the fridge…”

Ian froze. Yeah, the fridge… That would have been the logical thing to do… but Ian had lost all sense of logic around Mickey. He was back to being an awkward, hopelessly crushing teenager.

He told himself to chill out and wordlessly handed Mickey a plate and utensils. Mickey grabbed one of the deep dish slices out of the box and slid down onto a dining room chair.

“Beer?” Ian offered, to which Mickey nodded. He grabbed two cold bottles from the fridge and brought them over to the table with his own slice. He breathed in the scent of the food before he began cutting it. There was nothing better than a cold beer and pizza.

“What kind of asshole likes mushrooms?” Mickey asked between bites. “Pepperoni is definitely the way to go.” Mickey took another huge bite and elicited a low moaning sound. “Mmm, there’s nothing better than a cold beer and delicious pizza…”

Ian nearly choked on his beer. Holy shit, it was like Mickey was in his head or something. All he could do was nod in agreement.

“So... how did you see the ad? Lip thinks no one even reads the Classifieds anymore,” he asked between bites.

Mickey shrugged again. A long strand of melting cheese stretched from his mouth to the plate. He bit at it again and again but it kept stretching thinner instead of breaking off. Ian stifled a laugh.

“I get the paper for the puzzles and the comics,” Mickey reluctantly admitted once he’d swallowed the cheese down. “Plus, I get a kick out of reading the ads. Have you seen some of the fucked up shit people write in there? I saw one last week for this guy who was willing to pay twenty bucks per meal for someone to chew his food for him‒”

“And regurgitate it into his mouth?” Ian cut him off eagerly. “Holy shit, I saw that one too! Fucking disgusting!”

“I know. There are some sick fucks in this world,” Mickey nodded before washing down his pizza with what was left of his beer bottle.

“Here, let me get you another one,” Ian told him. “So, uh, what do you do?” he wondered. He probably could have come up with a more smooth way of asking, but he was really fucking curious. He wanted to know everything about Mickey, and considered himself lucky that his stupid mouth hadn’t just rattled off all of his questions at once.

Mickey watched Ian, studying him carefully before giving an answer. “I can give you four months rent up front, cash. That’ll get me to the end of the year, plus the security deposit you wanted. Does it really matter how I make the money, s’long as I got it?”

Ian frowned, mulling over Mickey’s words. He didn’t have a problem with breaking the law… far from it, actually, but he knew that what his family did to survive and what other people considered acceptable were on two very different sides of a line. “Do you hurt anyone to get it?” he asked quietly.

“No one who doesn’t have it coming to ‘em,” was Mickey’s honest reply.

Ian couldn’t really hold that against him. He passed Mickey the fresh beer he’d gotten, the gesture basically telling Mickey that he was fine with not digging deeper into how the guy made his money. He was burning with curiosity about how Mickey had managed to hurt his face so badly, and wondered if it had anything to do with what he did for a living, but fought down the urge to ask.

“How ‘bout you?” Mickey eventually inquired in turn. “What do you do?”

Ian tried hard not to let his happiness from being asked something personal about himself show, even though in his head he was having a private party because Mickey had shown even the slightest bit of interest in learning more about him. “I’m in college,” he answered calmly enough to not have Mickey think he was a freak. (Of course he left out the part where he spent most weekends dancing in front of horny men in nothing but his underwear out.) “Liberal arts right now, but I think I want to be a physical therapist or something like that.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Why? Does that surprise you?”

“Dunno. Just figured you’d be doing something with law enforcement going off of that ninja shit you pulled on your brother.”

Ian barked out an exaggerated laugh at that. It was all he could do to keep from crying. If only Mickey knew how right he was...

“Learned it in ROTC.”

“Army?” Mickey asked, raising his brows again. Ian had never met anyone with such expressive eyebrows before.

“Yeah… I wanted to be a marine when I was younger.” He kept his answer short, not really wanting to get into it.

Apparently it wasn’t enough of an answer for Mickey. “So what the hell are you doing the physical therapy shit for? Recruiting station’s not far.”

Ian grimaced. Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder hadn’t been the worst thing that had happened to Ian in his lifetime, but it had meant that his dreams of being a marine were shot. (No pun intended.) “No mental illness that needs to be treated with medication on a daily basis allowed,” he recited. “Automatic DQ, even from ROTC.” He carefully eyed Mickey, bracing himself for the inevitable pity and avoidance that always accompanied his honesty about his disqualification. Why the hell had he told Mickey that shit? Nobody wanted to live with a crazy person… “So at least with physical therapy, all those years spent working out won’t have been for nothing, right?” He tried to smile but it wasn’t happening.

“That fucking sucks. But hey, at least you won’t have your fucking head shot off by some five year old kid with a machine gun in the middle of the fucking desert, right?”

Ian was stunned and relieved at the same time. No one had ever had the balls to joke about it with him before. He gaped at Mickey, who seemed to not even notice Ian’s reaction, too busy digging into his pockets for something. He pulled out a box of Marlboros and one of those cheap, disposable lighters.

Ian had nothing against smoking; hell, he’d only quit a few months ago because of his meds, but Ned had asked him to take care of the apartment, since it was still under his name. “Um, do you mind doing that out the window? The apartment belongs to a family friend and I promised him I wouldn’t fuck anything up too badly.”

Mickey tucked the cigarette behind his ear. “Oh, okay Terrie Hall, I’ll just smoke it outside,” he scoffed. He stood, and Ian rose to meet him immediately, only half offended by the nickname. The rest of him was now in panic-mode about the possibility of Mickey leaving.

“So, we good?” Mickey wondered.

Ian sighed in relief before nodding.

“When can I move in?”

“Whenever you want to!” he answered, forgetting all about their army discussion and his oversharing, just fucking grateful that he hadn’t screwed up to the point of turning Mickey off of renting the room.

“Tomorrow afternoon good?”

_Breathe_ , Ian reminded himself. He was way too excited. Mickey was moving in. Tomorrow. Mickey was moving in tomorrow. _You’re an adult. Stop acting like a fucking child and  b r e a t h e._ “Yeah, ‘course. Whenever! Tomorrow’s great.” He suddenly remembered one more thing. “Just, you don’t have any pets, right?”

“Do I look like the kinda guy who has a fucking pet?” Mickey answered.

Ian shrugged in response, so Mickey nodded curtly and was gone before Ian even had a chance to say goodbye.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian was dressed in his favorite jeans and T-shirt combo when Mickey came by with Mandy the following morning.

_Ian was dressed in his favorite jeans and T-shirt combo when Mickey came by with Mandy the following morning._

He’d spent the morning apologizing to Lip for the way he’d kicked him out, and trying to convince his brother that he wasn’t crazy for renting the room to Mickey. Lip went as far as to accuse him of letting his dick make all the decisions, but Ian didn’t press the issue because, yeah, if he was being honest with himself, he might be able to admit that his attraction to Mickey had played a role in his eagerness to have the older man move in, but he would _never_ concede that fact to Lip.

If Lip realized Ian was dressed up special for Mickey, he didn’t comment. He was just finishing up covertly looking at his reflection in the mirror for the umpteenth time when the doorbell rang. Ian opened it to reveal Mickey and a girl standing beside him, both holding ratty-looking cardboard boxes.

“So, uh... This is my little sister Mandy,” he told Ian through the doorway. Mandy looked like she could have been Mickey’s twin. She had her dark, black hair up in a messy bun and was wearing grey jeans with a black shirt that hung loose on her shoulders, exposing her smooth, pale skin. She gave Ian a smile that caused small, subtle crinkles around her blue eyes that he only noticed because he’d seen them on Mickey, and shoved past Ian with the large box she held in her hands.

Once she stepped into the apartment, she spun around in place and let out a soft whistle. “How the hell did _you_ afford a room in a place like this?” she accused, raising a questioning brow to her brother in the same way that Mickey did every time he asked Ian questions the previous night.

"The place is rent controlled," Mickey scoffed, "and it's not that big a room."

Ian gave him a guilty, tight-lipped smile, yet again feeling guilty about the size of the spare room.

Mandy plopped the large box she held onto the couch, startling Lip in the process.

"Mandy," she said, holding out her arm. Lip eyed her carefully over the edge of his phone and made no indication of moving. Mandy furrowed her brow in obvious offense and withdrew her outstretched hand.

"Don't mind Lip," Ian said, apologizing on his brother's behalf. Lip was still prissy about Ian kicking him out the night before and was clearly acting out by being hostile towards Mandy. "He's just upset that I threw out his disgusting mushroom pizza. Are there more boxes?"

"Just a few, down in the lobby," Mickey said.

"Cool. You can go take those to the room while I get the rest," Ian offered. He left the apartment door open behind him and walked to elevator. Just as he pressed the button for the ground floor, Mickey slipped in through the closing doors. The elevator suddenly felt a lot smaller.

“I’ll help you so that we only have to make one trip. It was a bitch dragging all this shit around on the L,” he told Ian, who fought to keep his eyes on the small panel above the metal doors that told them which floor they were on, instead of at Mickey’s thick arms, shiny with a thin layer of sweat from the taxing trek downtown, no doubt. The illuminated number six dimmed as the number five lit up.

Ian’s stomach felt like it was dropping, not just from their descent. Mickey was so _close_ to him that he could smell him, a combination of cigarettes, sweat and something else… maybe hair gel? He wasn’t sure.

He chanced a quick glance at the older man. His hair was slicked back again in the same style he’d worn when they’d met the previous day. The sides were buzzed shorter than the top, and Ian grinned with the realization that they basically had the same hairstyle.

The elevator dinged and Ian looked forward again to see the doors opening. He’d gotten distracted by Mickey’s damned _hair_ , for God’s sake. He frowned at his lack of self control and followed Mickey to the lobby where two more large boxes were waiting for them under the mailboxes.

“How did you and Mandy carry these here by yourselves?” he wondered. The boxes looked heavy. He bent and picked up the one closest to him and heaved it up, lifting with his knees. They _were_ heavy.

“Not easily,” Mickey huffed out as he, too, lifted his box.

When they got back into the apartment, Lip was still sitting on the couch with his phone. He lifted it up and took a selfie, then continued his typing. Ian sighed at his brother. Lip was supposed to be there to “help” but all he was doing was sitting on the couch and Snapchatting with his girlfriend. He hadn’t even said a single word since Mickey and his sister had arrived.

Ian headed straight for Mickey’s room. He put the box down on the floor beside the bare mattress of the single bed, and Mickey followed suit. Mandy was already going through the box she’d carried in, taking out the most random things and placing them on the small desk Ian had decided to drag back into the room. He’d gotten the impression that Mickey wasn’t going to bring in any additional furniture, so he’d thought the table would be welcomed.

“I don’t see what you need this junk for…” Mandy griped, turning a gas mask around before making a face and putting it down. “Waste of space if you ask me, and believe me, you need all the space you can get in this tiny, bitch-ass room…”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t fuckin’ ask you, so keep your opinions to yourself, skank,” Mickey said, grabbing the box from the desk away from Mandy and putting it on the ground with the others.

“What- _ever_ ,” she breathed, rolling her eyes. “Let me know when you’re done unpacking your worthless shit so we can get something to eat before I go home. I’ll be waiting in the living room with Mr. Bean.”

He stifled a laugh, actually getting the reference. It seemed like both of the Milkoviches had a habit of making pop-culture references, and Ian appreciated both their sense of dry humor.

Ian looked around the room, feeling out of place. He wanted to make himself useful.

“So… which box are the bedsheets in? That’s as good a place to start as any…”

“Oh, fuck,” Mickey snapped.

“Are you serious?” Ian asked incredulously. “You didn’t bring sheets?”

Mickey shook his head.

“What about a pillow?”

The brunet bit his lip and shook his head again. “I didn’t think about it. Grabbed clothes, underwear and socks. You know, the important shit.”

“I’d say sheets are pretty important, Mickey,” Ian teased.

Mickey’s answering glare had Ian feeling bad for the guy. “I think I have a spare set you can use. They’re definitely too big for a twin, but they’ll do until you can get your own set. And you can borrow one of my pillows. I’ll be right back.”

He left the room and took a right. His room was at the end of the hall, just past the bathroom. He was rifling through the linens in his closet when Mandy joined him. She leaned against the doorframe and watched him with interest, but Ian felt like squirming under her gaze.

“Hey.” He hoped some conversation would put an end to the awkwardness he felt. Ian hated being watched; it reminded him of when they’d had him under observation at the hospital after his first big crash.

“You’re room’s a lot nicer,” Mandy said bluntly.

“Yeah, well, my rent’s also more than double what your brother’s paying, so don’t think I’m scamming him or anything,” he answered her, equally forthcoming.

She cocked her head to the side and looked like she was digesting his words. Then she shrugged her shoulders, as if making a decision that Ian wasn’t taking advantage of her brother. She pushed her body away from the door and walked around his room, picking random things up and inspecting them before returning them to their previous locations.

“So who helped you decorate?”

“What makes you think someone helped me?”

“Oh come on. No guy would choose decor like this,” she said, waving at a dark metal picture frame. She bent down and looked at the photo behind the frame. “These your sisters? Bet it was one of them.”

“Yeah. That’s Debbie and Fiona. They both helped” he conceded.

“And this?” Mandy asked pointing at another picture.

“That’s Nick.”

“Boyfriend?” she asked.

Ian’s heart only stopped for like, ten seconds, before he was able to recover from the shock of Mandy’s assumption and form a coherent thought. If he was back home in the South Side, he would have tried to actively deny it. He had no idea how she could tell...

“No. Definitely _not_ my boyfriend, despite what Lip says. He was my best friend.”

“Was?”

“Is,” Ian corrected. “He _is_ my best friend. But he’s away at school in New York now.”

“Sucks. You seeing someone else then?”

Ian eyed Mandy carefully before giving the girl any sort of answer. She was still casually walking around his room, but when she looked up at him, the corners of her mouth were turned up into a subtle smile. He knew she was pushing him to confirm his sexuality, but he could also tell ‒ to his great relief ‒ that his answer wouldn’t make a difference to her.

“No, not right now.”

Ian realized that this was a great opportunity to learn some more about Mickey, and possibly confirm his suspicions about the older man’s sexuality.

“What about Mickey? Is he seeing anyone?”

Mandy shook her head. “Mickey doesn’t do relationships. He gets around with some of the bigger girls back home once in a while... but a girlfriend?” she giggled. “Nah. Not Mickey’s style.”

Ian frowned, his hopes dashed. Could he have read Mickey so wrong? He’d definitely sensed something, but based on what Mandy was telling him, Mickey was into girls. A small part of him clung to the possibility that Mickey was bisexual, but he couldn’t help but feel a little defeated.

“Who knows?” Mandy continued, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe he’s on to something. Can’t get hurt if you aren’t even _in_ a relationship, right?” she asked, sadness filling her eyes for only a split second, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“This apartment used to belong to my ex. Not all relationships end badly...”

“Ah. So a former sugar daddy? Well, that explains the rent control…” she nodded, understanding the truth behind his words without needing further explanation. He liked her already, not just because of her sense of humor but also because of how fast she was on her feet. Ian got the feeling that he and Mandy could be good friends very easily.

“Something like that. We were hooking up for a while but it ended when my sister found out I was giving it to her boyfriend’s dad.”

“No fucking way!”

“Yeah… but he’s always been really nice to me.”

“I bet he has. What kinda sugar daddy would he be otherwise?” she teased, sticking her tongue out between her teeth mischievously.

“Hah-hah, very funny.” Ian found the sheets, as well as a fresh pillowcase, then closed the closet door. “Can you grab a pillow from there?” he asked her, pointing at his bed. Mandy nodded and walked to the side Ian had indicated.

“I’ll get it,” Mickey said gruffly from the doorway as he walked in. He grabbed the linens out of the redhead’s hands and took the pillow off the bed before his sister even had a chance to reach out for it. He was gone in a flash, leaving Ian completely confused about what had happened.

“What the hell was that about?”  

Mandy shrugged, staring silently down the hallway at Mickey’s back for a few moments as he walked away from them. “He must have overheard you. Milkoviches tend to be a little fucked up when it comes to gays,” she admitted. “Mickey might not be as violent as my other idiotic brothers, but he was still raised by our dad.”

Ian’s eyes widened as he digested Mandy’s words. He hadn’t gotten a homophobic vibe off of Mickey the previous night. In fact, they’d gotten along really well. Mickey had been very social and, not exactly _nice_ , but not mean either. He’d felt a connection with him… Oddly enough, the only thing Ian was worried about was if Mickey would change his mind about renting the room if he knew that his roommate was queer.

“Hey, relax,” Mandy said, mistaking the concern on his face with fear for his own safety. She put a reassuring hand on Ian’s bicep and he flinched, not expecting the physical contact. “It’s not like he’s gonna go fuck you up or anything,” she said with a wink. “Just give him some space. Maybe don’t rub it in his face until he’s settled in.”

Mandy left soon afterwards, foregoing getting dinner with Mickey in favor of getting home a bit earlier. Lip also left, but not before making a rude comment about Ian’s new ex-con roommate with his death-threat knuckle tattoos, yet again reminding Ian of how much he disapproved of his younger brother’s new choice of roommate.

A half hour later, Ian decided to check in on Mickey, who had wanted to unpack on his own. It was getting dark, so he knocked on the outside of the door gently before walking in. “Hey, the super won’t be able to fix the light until Monday,” Ian apologized. “My little sister got me this giant candle when I moved in... It’s supposed to smell like freshly baked cookies or something. I figure it should be able to hold you over ‘til then.”

Mickey accepted the candle but didn’t utter a thank you. He took the same cheap lighter out of his pocket and lit the wick. The cookie smell was instantaneous. Mickey put the candle down on the desk and bent to pick up another box, acting like Ian wasn’t even there.

“I’m sorry about what my brother said about you being an ex-con. He’s just being an asshole ‘cuz of how I kicked him out last night.” There were another few moments of deafening silence after which Ian turned to go, getting the hint that his company wasn’t wanted.

“He ain’t wrong,” Mickey said in a low voice without looking back.

“What?”

“You’re brother wasn’t wrong,” he repeated slowly, never taking his gaze off the box in his hands. “I’ve been to Juvie before. A couple’a times, actually. I’m not ashamed to admit it.”

“Oh.”

Ian didn’t really know what else to say.

Mickey put the box back down and walked over to the window. He opened it with some effort, then took out a cigarette and lit it.

“Thanks for the candle,” he muttered to Ian as he leaned against the sill and blew smoke out through the window, staring out at the darkening city.  
Ian slowly left the room, feeling more than a little disappointed. He told himself it was Mickey’s first night in the apartment, and the guy probably just wanted some time to take it all in… but that didn’t stop Ian from feeling brushed off and even a bit rejected.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey was the ideal roommate. The only problem was that he was just that‒a roommate. and nothing more, no matter how badly Ian wished otherwise.

_Mickey was the ideal roommate. The only problem was that he was just that‒a roommate. and nothing more, no matter how badly Ian wished otherwise._

They never needed to have the talk about apartment rules, much to Ian’s relief. Mickey cleaned up after himself all the time, especially in the kitchen and bathroom, to the point where Ian didn’t even know where Mickey kept his things. He didn’t leave wet towels or hair-covered bars of soap in the shower, and there were no razors or hair gel anywhere to be found. The only signs that he lived there at all were his blue toothbrush in the cup beside the sink, the beer bottles that mysteriously appeared in the garbage can each night, and the boxes upon boxes of frozen dinners and pizza bagels in the freezer. Oh, and the neverending supply of jello in the fridge was also a quirk of Mickey’s. Ian wondered how anyone could survive on so much jello...

Between going to class, working and visiting his siblings back in Canaryville, he barely ever saw Mickey. On the off chance that Ian had a free weekend, Lip would come over and they would bullshit in front of the TV while eating take-out.

“I just don’t get it,” Ian complained after finally tearing his eyes away from Mickey’s door. He had just invited Mickey to join them in watching some funny YouTube videos while eating Chinese delivery. “Why doesn’t he want to hang out? He can’t hate you _that_ much… I mean he only really met you _twice._ ”

“Maybe he has something against Chinese food? Doesn’t want to accidentally eat anything that might not be real chicken?” Lip suggested with a smirk as he bit into a piece of General Tao’s.

Ian glared at him. Mickey would avoid the living room at all costs when Lip was around, and even though Ian slightly resented his brother for it, there was nothing he could do about it. The two _really_ didn’t get along. It didn’t help that Lip was always so rude to Mickey, and even to Mandy when she came over to visit her brother.

“Yeah, but I know for a fact he likes pizza, and last night when I asked him to join me, he refused too. And you weren’t even here...”

His brother scoffed and made a pained expression, as if he was actually offended by the idea of Mickey disliking him.

Ian didn’t understand. It had been two weeks already, and each time he invited Mickey to join him, the older man declined, giving the bullshit excuse of not being hungry. He knew Mickey was hungry this time because he’d just gotten a beer and nuked himself some Hot Pockets, but for whatever reason, Mickey preferred spending his nights alone in his room.

“I don’t see why you want to be friends with someone like that anyway. You _know_ he’s done time. You _know_ what he does for a living. You’ve heard of the Milkoviches… remember when Frank tried to buy an alibi off of that guy Terry? Terry, as in Mickey’s dad. Bro, if I were you, I’d be thankful he wants nothing to do with me.”

Ian was frowning as he planned his comeback in Mickey’s defense, when Lip let out a startled breath.

“Holy shit, you like him.”

“W-what?” Ian stammered, quickly looking at the bedroom door to make sure it was closed.

“You _like_ him,” Lip said with more confidence. “You have a _crush_ on him. That’s why you rented him the room without doing any kind of background check and that’s why you’re so quick to jump to his defense. Ian. _Ian_! You can’t have the hots for someone like Mickey Milkovich. What the hell are you thinking? If he finds out you’re gay he’ll kill you!”

“Keep your voice down!” Ian whispered back harshly. He chanced another glance at the door but it remained shut, to his relief, and there was no sound coming through, save for the low music from Mickey’s stereo.

“He already knows I’m gay,” Ian continued, once he felt like the coast was clear. “He overheard me talking to his sister, and he _wouldn’t_ kill me. Mandy said he’s not like the rest of his brothers...”

“Oh yeah, go on the word of that skank. I thought you were smarter than that. Since when do you think with your dick and not your brain?”

“You’re one to talk. Don’t make me bring up Karen again,” he muttered, crossing his arms. He didn’t think he was thinking with his dick. He just had a gut feeling that Mickey wasn’t what Lip was making him out to be. The Gallaghers were from the South Side; it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen their fair share of trouble before. Ian felt like he would have known if he should be wary of Mickey...

“Any word from Nick?” Lip wondered.

“Why don’t you just mind your own business?” he told Lip, but the attempt at an insult fell on deaf ears. His brother was too busy thinking he was the King of the Universe, some kind of almighty know-it-all because he had correctly guessed about Ian’s crush on Mickey. Bringing up Nick was Lip’s way of teasing Ian about his poor romantic decisions.  
He didn’t tell Lip that the only contact he’d had with Nick since their phone call two weeks prior had been a shitty email his friend had sent him, telling Ian that he probably wouldn’t be able to keep in touch properly until Thanksgiving break because he was so busy with classes and training.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It took about a month for Ian to accept the fact that Mickey didn’t want to be his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note for this chapter: There’s some graphic/gory descriptions of the movie “Hostel”, so proceed with caution or skip it if that's not your cup of tea.

_It took about a month for Ian to accept the fact that Mickey didn’t want to be his friend._

The older man made it very obvious that he wanted to be left alone. There were only so many times Mickey needed to decline Ian’s numerous invitations to hang out together or go get dinner before the redhead got the picture.

Mandy, on the other hand, was not like her antisocial brother. Ian had just taken his meds and was about to go to sleep when the doorbell rang. Confused as to who would be there this late‒he knew Lip was at the library with the rest of his engineering buddies, studying for midterms‒he carefully opened the door.

Mandy was waiting on the other side. “God, I feel like a vampire,” she said from the doorway, flashing him an evil grin. “You gonna invite me in?”

Ian returned her smile before letting her in.

“It’s Tuesday,” he told her. Mandy stared at him, as if the words were supposed to make sense to her, but Ian could see she had no idea what he was going on about. “Mickey doesn’t get in ‘til after midnight on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” he explained.

“Wow, stalker much?” she teased. Ian laughed, played it off like she had made a hilarious joke, when he was actually screaming on the inside. Mandy went straight to the kitchen and took two beers out of the fridge. After a second’s hesitation, she opened the door again and grabbed a couple of jello cups.

“He’s gonna kill you…” Ian warned, but Mandy shrugged her shoulders as if the very real threat of death didn’t even phase her.

“I’d like to see him try,” she said with a smile, pushing one of the beers into his hands before plopping down onto the couch. She kicked off her shoes and sat crosslegged in the the corner, popped open the beer can and took a relaxed sip before patting the space beside her, motioning for Ian to sit. “So, what should we do?”

“Do?”

“Yeah. _Do_. What do you wanna do to entertain me ‘til my jerk of a brother gets back?”

Ian carefully sat beside Mandy and thought about her words. Mickey certainly didn’t want anything to do with him, but Mandy obviously didn’t share her brother’s antisocial qualities. Part of him was happy; he could learn a lot from Mandy about her brother... but the thing was, Ian wasn’t the kind of person to use someone. That may have come naturally for Frank or Monica to do, but it wasn’t something Fiona would have been proud seeing her siblings do. She had raised them, not exactly to be _better_ than Frank, but at least to be more _human_ than their father.

“Got any video games?” she asked, impatient.

“No…”

“Seriously? Huh. I don’t think Mickey’s ever gone more than a couple of days without playing with his Xbox. He didn’t bring it?”

Ian shook his head. As far as he knew, Mickey didn’t have any game consoles, but if that was a thing the older man liked, then maybe Ian could use it to his advantage. He filed the information for later use.

“Weird. Okay then, let’s watch a movie.”

“Sure. I don’t have a lot of DVDs here but you might be able to find something you like. Or we can download something. Or I can call my brother and get his girlfriend’s Netflix password. Or-”

“Jesus, take a breath! I’m sure we can find something.”

She laughed and shook her head ever-so-slightly while rolling her eyes. The movement made her bangs sway and Ian couldn’t explain why that calmed him down.

He pointed at the drawer underneath the TV, where the DVDs were kept, and she begrudgingly got up and took a look. “The Little Mermaid? Really?”

“That’s Debbie’s. She acts all grown up now, but she can never _not_ watch it. I think she keeps it here so that her friends don’t see it in her room…”

“Is your sister a redhead too? The younger one from the picture in your room, right?”

“Yeah, but she’s the only one besides me.”

“How many of you Gallaghers are there?”

“Six,” Ian answered without thinking. “Well, maybe seven. Or five, if you’re only counting full siblings. I don’t know.”

Mandy looked up from the DVDs and quirked an eyebrow at him exactly the way Mickey would, making him miss the guy he’d met that first night who’d come to see the apartment.

“It’s complicated,” Ian said in reply, shrugging.

She gave him a small smile. “Isn’t it always complicated in the South Side?”

He had to laugh at that.

“Alright. You have two options in this crap-filled mess you call a DVD collection.” She held up the two cases.

Ian’s laughter got louder. He didn’t know what he’d expected Mandy to choose, but the two films she held weren’t it. “Hostel or Saw? Those are your choices?”

“You’re the one who owns them, dork.”

“Yeah, but I never pegged you for being the horror movie type.”

“I’m just full of surprises, I guess. Quit stalling and pick one,” Mandy demanded.

“So you want me to choose between people cutting off their limbs, or… having their limbs cut off…”

Mandy grinned like it was Christmas. “I don’t care. You can pick.”

“Alright, let’s go with Hostel then.”

Mandy put the DVD in and settled back onto the couch. She eagerly peeled the foil off the top of one of the green jello cups and began eating the treat without a spoon. Ian watched with interest as she somehow used her tongue to scoop out the jiggly jello.

He wondered what it was about the snack that had both Milkovich siblings so head over heels. During the first week after he’d moved in, Mickey had left a post-it note on his jello warning that he would kill Ian if he even looked at the containers the wrong way. When Ian had apparently passed the probationary period, the post-it had disappeared, but Ian didn’t dare take a chance.

“You gonna stare at me for the next two hours?”

He chuckled and turned his attention to the screen.

They were more than an hour in when the sound of the door being unlocked came from behind them.

Mickey walked in, looking utterly exhausted.

“It’s about time,” Mandy teased. Ian paused the movie and turned to look back at Mickey. His hair clung to his face, wet and flat. He shrugged out of his brown sweater, which was also looking quite damp. It must have started raining while they were busy watching the movie. Mickey dragged a hand down his face to brush the rogue strands out of his vision, dirty fingers actually adding small smudges where they touched his tired features.

“Are you kidding me, Gallagher? What the fuck did I tell you about touching my motherfucking jello?” He must have just noticing the empty plastic cups on the coffee table.

“Whoa, easy there, Cujo,” Mandy said mockingly to her brother. “Ian didn’t touch your precious snacks. In fact, he tried to stop me.”

Mickey returned his glare to Ian. “Should’a tried _harder_ ,” he practically snarled, and of course instead of being offended, Ian felt guilty. He would never willingly do _anything_ to anger Mickey.

Mandy flashed Mickey a grin, seemingly unperturbed by her brother’s angry outburst. “Oh come on, Mick. You questioning your roommates loyalty?” she teased. “Well, don’t,” she ordered without waiting for his answer. “He didn’t _have_ to waste his night entertaining me.”

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Ian chimed in, but closed his mouth when both Milkoviches turned to look at him.

Ian was about to excuse himself and just flee from the situation when Mickey groaned. “What the fucking hell are you douchebags watching? What… oh my God. What the _fuck_? Did he just… is that‒ is that her _eyeball_?”

All eyes were drawn to the TV, where the Asian girl was being rescued from the factory by the main character, who had just shot the girl’s torturer. The only problem was that her eye had already been burned with a blowtorch, and her melted eyeball was hanging out of its socket. The main character was forced to cut it off before they could leave.

As soon as he did it, white pus began oozing out of her eye socket. “That is so fucking _fake_ ,” Mickey insisted, but Ian noticed that he was cringing as he said it. “There’s no reason for that to happen in real life. How would she already have pus there if he just burned her eye a minute ago? This movie is bullshit.”

But instead of walking away, Mickey lingered. He continued standing behind the couch, eyes glued to the television. A couple of minutes later, he walked around the back of the seat to the empty space beside Ian.

“Shove over, faggots,” he muttered, never breaking his focus away the movie. The three of them watched intently for the next half hour, and each time Mickey noticed a flaw or continuity issue with the movie, he didn’t hesitate to point it out.

“Did you see that?” he asked, waving his arm hopelessly at the screen. “Right there, when he ran over the three Slovakian scammers with his car. Just when he hit them, the dark haired girl in the middle smashed into the windshield and stuck onto it, but in the next shot she was rolling over the car. You don’t even need to watch it in slow-motion to see how crappy it is,” he muttered.

“Whatever, Mickey. Can’t you just let us enjoy the fucking movie?” Mandy griped.

“Not when it’s crap,” he grumbled.  
Ian couldn’t care less if Mickey was being annoying or not. He was deliriously happy, sitting on the couch squished between the two Milkoviches while they all watched the movie together. It was the first time Mickey was hanging out with him since he had moved in, and he would gladly endure hours of complaints if that was the cost of Mickey’s company.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey’s mood matched the sky: dark, cloudy and grumbling now and then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little point of view change here, but i don't think anyone will mind knowing what mickey's been thinking... :)

_Mickey’s mood matched the sky: dark, cloudy and grumbling now and then._

He’d spent the last month avoiding his dad, but it had all finally come to a head. He stood across the street from his old home, smoking a cigarette and watching as the police dragged his drunk father out of the house and into the waiting squad car. Terry was definitely putting up a good fight, kicking and resisting them the entire way down the front stairs, but the officers held their own. He could still hear his dad cursing even after the door was slammed shut.

Mickey had grown up on the South Side and he had learned to survive, not just in his neighborhood, but in his own home. In order to survive as a Milkovich, Mickey had had to play certain things up: his interest in women and his propensity for violence being just two of many. He didn’t think of himself as an inherently bad person, but found himself teetering on that line whenever he spent too much time around his father. Terry had certain expectations for his kids, and until a month ago, Mickey had more than lived up to the Milkovich reputation.

That had all ended when Terry had come home from a run earlier than planned and had caught Mickey experimenting with one of Mandy’s toys. Saying that his dad been more than a little disappointed would have been the understatement of the century. To quote, “No son of his would be a Goddamn AIDS monkey.”

Mickey didn’t know how he’d gotten away, especially after his dad had pistol-whipped him so badly. He’d somehow managed to pull his shorts up and had stumbled out of his room, pulling anything within reach down behind him to stall Terry long enough so that he could run out of the house. He’d wandered around for the next couple of hours, stealing a shirt off a random clothesline and a pair of ratty sneakers from one of his neighbors’ porches. He had waited outside of his house, just like he was doing now, until he’d been sure his dad had gone, before even daring to go back inside and get his cash, clothes and cell phone.

He’d known he needed to get out of the house before his dad could kill him, so he’d taken the basics and had gone to stay at a skeevy motel for a couple of days until he’d found a more permanent place to live.

Of course, he hadn’t told Mandy any of this. He’d made up some excuse about wanting his own place and access to a bigger market to unload some coke, and his sister hadn’t asked questions. She had even put the remainder of his things into boxes for him.

Mandy hadn’t mentioned anything about Terry looking for him, but that hadn’t stopped Mickey from spending every moment of the last month looking over his shoulder. He’d known his dad was out for blood. Terry never forgot about anything or forgave anyone; no debt or slight was too small for him to give the offender the beating of a lifetime. Mickey had known that Terry would eventually find him and kill him.

He could never tell Mandy the truth; not because he was embarrassed‒even though he _was_ ‒but because of what he had done afterwards. Although the Milkoviches didn’t really have a strong sense of morality, one thing they held dear was the importance of family. Once you were in that inner circle, you were protected. They would do anything to protect each other, but tonight, Mickey had violated that code.

He watched the police car as it pulled away from the curb, red and blue lights still flashing. He let out the smoke that filled his lungs and was flooded with relief. After a whole month of fearing for his life, he finally felt a sense of freedom from the ever-present threat looming over him. He took another puff of the cigarette. Terry couldn’t hurt him from behind bars; he was sure of it. If the last few weeks were any indication, his dad wasn’t jumping at the opportunity of getting others to do his dirty work for him, because that would entail admitting to them that his son was a faggot.

Mickey tossed the cigarette onto the sidewalk where it joined the rest of the pack he’d smoked that night, not even bothering to crush the butt under his heel. It looked like it was about to rain anyway. He turned and walked towards the train as soon as the squad car rounded the corner.

The train ride downtown was slow and seemed to drag on forever. The car he was in was pretty empty, typical for so late on a Thursday night. There was only one bum sleeping on the seats across from him, and the smell emanating from his dirty clothes led Mickey to believe the guy hadn’t showered in at least a month.

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted to go back… to just leave his shit in his new apartment and move back into his old house. Things would be different now that his dad wasn’t there…

...the thing was, the South Side didn’t have Ian Gallagher.

Mickey closed his eyes and exhaled. What the fuck was wrong with him? Ever since that first moment when Ian had opened his front door in nothing but a fucking towel, Mickey had been fucked. The body, the eyes, the red hair, the fucking _freckles_ … it was too much. How could one person look so good?

But nothing about that first night had gone smoothly. For starters, Ian had been nervous right off the bat, which had only served to make Mickey more nervous. He’d tried to concentrate on the reason he was there: he needed an apartment. He’d known before even seeing the room that he would take it, no matter what the condition. He had been desperate for a place, the rent was cheap, and the apparent eye candy was just an added bonus. The whole confrontation with Ian’s brother Lip hadn’t exactly made the night go easier either.

Needless to say, once Ian had offered him pizza, the night had started looking up. Mickey had immediately been attracted to Ian, but was at a severe disadvantage, his main problem being that, after spending so many years fighting who he was and putting in so much effort to not get caught, he had no idea how to flirt with a guy. It helped a little to know that Ian was so obviously attracted to _him_ , to the point where he’d turned into a clumsy, blushing fool. It had seemed like he and Ian had so much in common: they both were from the South Side of Chicago, liked the same pizza toppings, enjoyed reading the Classifieds for laughs; plus, Ian had shown a bit of his hand-to-hand combat skills, and Mickey had to admit he was impressed by what he’d seen. So when Ian had surprised Mickey by being so forthcoming about his illness, Mickey had tried his best to make light of the situation. It had seemed to work, the redhead visibly relaxing and even laughing.

The train suddenly screeched to a halt and Mickey was jolted forward, temple banging against the metal handrail at the end of the row of seats. “Fuck,” he cursed, rubbing at the side of his head. The engineer made some sort of muffled announcement over the intercom and Mickey was only able to pick up the words “delay” and “construction”. _Wonderful_ , he thought.

He took out his phone to check the time. It was almost eleven. There would be no way he’d make it to his last pickup of the night on time, so he quickly shot off a text to reschedule for the following day. He was annoyed with himself for wasting so long watching Terry get hauled off by the cops, but he knew that it was one of those things that he needed to witness.

The bum groaned and turned around in his reclined position, sending another wave of his noxious odor towards the thug. Mickey fucking hated old people, and not just the homeless ones. He thought back to the morning he had moved in to the apartment. He was positive that Ian had told him he was subletting the place from a family friend, but Mickey had overheard the redhead telling Mandy that it was his ex-boyfriend’s apartment, and that they were still on good terms. On the one hand, it was comforting to have confirmation of Ian’s sexuality, but on the other hand, the younger man had purposely misled him, and that had definitely rubbed Mickey the wrong way. He didn’t take kindly to being lied to.

Once the initial anger had worn off, Mickey had decided to take a step back. Ian was his roommate and effectively his landlord. His priority was having a place to live, not getting his rocks off... not to mention the fact that he didn’t even know if Ian’s “sugar-daddy” was still in play or not. Lip’s comment about being an ex-con had sealed the deal. There would be no point in pursuing anything besides a courteous landlord-tenant/roommate relationship with Ian Gallagher.

After he’d made that decision, it had been more than easy to avoid Ian. The guy was barely ever around, anyway. In fact, most of the time, Mickey felt like he was the only one living there, and whenever the younger man _was_ home, his douchebag brother was over. Ian had shown his true colors by lying to Mickey, and the fact that he enjoyed the company of Lip, brother or not, didn’t add any points in his favor. Turning down Ian’s attempts at hanging out had become easier and easier each and every time. In the end, all Ian had become was something pretty for Mickey to look at and rub one out to a couple of times a week.

There was a long beeping sound as the train came back to life and began moving again. They were only a few stops away from his station, and Mickey couldn’t wait to get home and unwind after such a long day. Of course, he quickly wished he was back on the L when he got off and realized it had started raining. He should have expected it; the sky had looked disgusting all day. He walked from the station to the apartment, getting completely drenched along the way.

Of course, when he finally got to the sixth floor and opened the door, his night only got worse. His sister, the traitor, was sitting in the dark living room, watching TV with Gallagher, and the bitch had gone and eaten his fucking Jello. For some reason, seeing Mandy and Ian hanging out together made him feel jealous.

Mickey stripped his soggy sweater off and moved his wet hair away from his eyes. It was almost getting as long as Ian’s, and he would need a haircut soon. He was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to fight with Mandy, so he chose Ian, the easier target. “Are you kidding me, Gallagher? What the fuck did I tell you about touching my motherfucking jello?” he accused. Mickey felt like he had every right to be pissed at his roommate because he’d explicitly told the him that he’d be a dead man if he so much as looked at the snacks the wrong way.

“Whoa, easy there, Cujo,” Mandy said, predictably jumping to Ian’s defense. His sister had a tendency of always taking the opposing side in _any_ argument against him. This time, that side happened to be the redhead’s. “Ian didn’t touch your precious snacks. In fact, he tried to stop me.”

Mickey ignored her and continued to give Ian a death-stare. “Should’a tried _harder_ ,” he snarled. He could see the guilt flash onto Ian’s innocent face and instantly regretted the harshness of his words, but then became annoyed with himself for letting the guy’s puppy dog eyes get under his skin.

Mandy snapped him out of his momentary frustration. “Oh come on, Mick. You questioning your roommates loyalty?” She was teasing him but it only made him more angry. Of course he questioned Ian’s loyalty. He’d been purposely distancing himself from Ian since day two _because_ of that fact.

“Well, don’t,” Mandy went on. “He didn’t _have_ to waste his night entertaining me.” Again, Mickey bristled at the feeling he got when he thought about Mandy and Ian spending time together.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Ian insisted, but shut up quickly when Mickey stared him down.

It was only then that Mickey noticed the image on the television screen. The movie they were watching was paused on a gruesome torture scene.

“What the fucking hell are you douchebags watching? What… oh my God. What the _fuck_? Did he just… is that‒ is that her _eyeball_?”

Ian pressed the play button and the movie resumed. Mickey soon recognized it as Hostel from what he remembered seeing in the previews.

Mickey wasn’t usually one for gore, but the movie had him fascinated. It was fucking horribly shot, and he kept seeing mistakes in continuity as well as just plain logic, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen. He eventually walked around the couch and joined them, shoving Ian closer to Mandy as he sat down. The space was limited so he could still feel Ian’s thigh against his, but he deliberately ignored it, as well as the grin that he was sure spread across Gallagher’s face.

Fake or not, he was hooked to the movie. The three of them watched the film intently for the next half hour, Mickey not even hesitating to point out the numerous flaws he caught. Ian didn’t make a fuss about his complaints about the movie, and he kind of liked that. In fact, Mickey was surprised that Mandy was the one to gripe at him.

Once it ended, Ian said goodnight to both of them and excused himself, saying he had to get some sleep before his early class the following morning. Mickey watched his roommate walk away and wondered how anyone could make sweatpants and an old tank-top look sexy. Apparently Ian Gallagher could.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey realized with dread that he would have to tell Mandy about Terry’s arrest.

_Mickey realized with dread that he would have to tell Mandy about Terry’s arrest._

After Ian had gone off to his room, Mandy also looked like she was about ready to leave. “Hey, can I talk to you?” he asked her quickly, before she had a chance to say anything close to a goodbye.

She quirked an eyebrow up at him, probably because she usually had to drag information out of him and now he was the one asking to talk to her. “...Yeah?” she asked him in a suspicious tone.

“Not here,” he told her, voice low. He gestured towards his bedroom door and they made their way into the small room.

“Got some news about dad,” he said, once he’d closed the door behind them.

“News? What do you mean?”

“Yeah, news... From Iggy,” he lied. Their brother was down in Florida on a run and would be gone for at least another week. Iggy had way too much fun every time he had to go down to their supplier in Miami, and Mickey knew that if Mandy questioned him about it when he got back to Chicago, he would assume he’d forgotten all about it while high on God knows what.

“He called me and said dad was taken in for questioning about a murder.” Lie. “Said the cops found a gun at a crime scene that had dad’s prints all over it.” Another lie. “Looks like he might be going down for murder this time.” More lies. Mickey had planted the gun, more than an hour after he’d heard about the hit. He knew that Terry had no alibi. He had framed his dad for murder, and had ensured that he would have no way out this time.

“ _What_?” Mandy stared at him in shock, her jaw actually hanging open. There was a hint of fear in her eyes.

Mickey looked down at the ground and nodded. “So, uh, if you and Iggy and Colin need help covering the bills or anything, you can always come to me,” he offered, feeling pathetic. He would _not_ move back home, but it was the least he could do, the situation being his fault and all.

His sister frowned at him. “That doesn’t make sense. Who was it? Did dad have beef with anyone?”

“Apparently it was some junkie hooker who couldn’t pay off her tab,” he shrugged, not giving more information than necessary. The less details he gave, the better. He didn’t want Mandy thinking he knew too much.

“But why would he just leave his fucking gun there? And why wouldn’t he call Tommy and Colin to help bury the body?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know, bitch. I’m not his fucking keeper,” Mickey snapped.

Mandy breathed out a long sigh. “This is too much,” she said, shaking her head. She reached into her bra and produced a dimebag. “Here, got you a gift.” She tossed the baggy onto the desk and went over to the sole window, pulling it open. The cold breeze quickly flooded the room, bringing a few droplets of rain in with it. At least the downpour from earlier had subsided a bit.

Mickey got his rolling papers out of the desk’s top drawer and began breaking up the weed. “Smells good,” he told Mandy as he breathed in the familiar scent. He couldn’t remember the last time he and his sister had smoked up together.  “Where’d you get this shit?”

He looked over to his sister who had suddenly gotten very quiet‒a very un-Mandy-like thing to do‒and saw that she was practically hanging out the window, body bent down towards the landing of the fire escape.

“Bitch, get back inside. Are you fucking crazy? We’re on the sixth floor.”

“Shh! Come here,” Mandy whispered. She reached a hand out behind her and motioned for him to come closer.

Mickey scrunched his brow together but couldn’t deny the fact that he was a bit curious about what had his sister so interested. He put the weed down, walked over to the window and craned his neck to look over her and see what she was so distracted by. There, in the corner of the fire escape, huddled between the rusty metal railing and the concrete of his apartment building, was a tiny, dirty ball of fur.

“Oh my God… It’s so small!” Mandy reached her hand out towards it, but the kitten recoiled. “Here kitty kitty,” she called, trying to coax it away from the edge.

“‘Here kitty kitty’? Are you fucking kidding me?” he repeated, mocking her. His sister could be so cliché sometimes, it killed him.

Mandy flashed him a scowl. “We can’t just leave it there, Mickey. It’s gonna freeze to death if it doesn’t fall and hit the pavement first.” She tried reaching for the cat again, but the thing let out a weak meow and shifted away from her.

The sound melted his heart. He looked at the small animal again and was actually kind of worried about the thing. It was soaking wet, clearly stuck and somehow separated from its family, but the worst part was that it was dangerously close to the edge of the building.

“You think I don’t know that, bitch?” Mickey hissed. “Move it,” he grunted, shoving his sister out of the way. “You’re gonna fucking scare it away.”

Moving slowly so as not to frighten the small cat to the point of falling, Mickey took a careful step out of his window and onto the fire escape, silently thanking whatever God there was for not letting the thing collapse under his added weight. “Pass me that blanket,” he told Mandy, pointing back to his bed.

She hurriedly brought the soft, plaid material over and he wrapped his hands in the blanket, then put them down and slowly slid the cloth closer to the baby cat until he had it in his grasp. It looked like it wanted to protest but was too weak to even lift a paw. He got back into the room and Mandy pulled the window shut behind him.

“What now?” he asked her.

She shrugged. “I don’t fucking know. What do I look like? The cat whisperer?”

Mickey was about to give her an equally snappy reply but he felt the cat shivering in his hands. “It’s cold, so I guess we warm it up. Maybe a warm bath or something?”

“Don’t cats hate water?” Mandy wondered.

“The little shit’s already soaking wet, so I don’t see how that’ll be a problem,” he told her. “Check to make sure Gallagher’s door’s closed, will ya?”

Mandy stuck her head out into the hallway and gave Mickey a thumbs up to indicate that the coast was clear. They crept to the bathroom and filled the sink with a couple of inches of warm water. The kitten didn’t protest as they washed the grime off of him. It was only then that Mickey was able to see the color of the thing’s fur.

Mandy let out a sudden laugh and Mickey shot her a weird look. “What the hell is so funny?”

“Doesn’t it remind you of Ian?” she asked him, as she dried the kitten off with a hand towel from the rack. Mickey couldn’t deny it; the kitten was definitely the same color as Gallagher’s hair. Mickey grunted. No matter what he did, he couldn’t keep the ginger from invading his life, first in his dreams and now in the form of a fucking kitten he just happened to rescue that looked exactly like him.

“He even has the same weird eye color as Ian. I can’t tell if they’re green or blue. It’s like a mixture of the two,” she told him, passing the cat to Mickey so that he could have a look.

“Gallagher’s got a strict ‘no pets’ policy. I can’t fucking keep him.” Mickey tried to push the bundled kitten back into Mandy’s arms but his sister sidestepped him.

“Ohhh no. No way, fucker. You think that it would survive in our house with Colin and Iggy around? They’d find some sick way of torturing the poor thing before the week is through and you know it.”

“Well I can’t keep it here. I don’t know the first fucking thing about cats. What the fuck does a kitten eat anyway?”

“You can hide him in your room for the night and we can figure out what to do with him tomorrow. What Ian doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” she said, ushering Mickey back to his room. “Cats like milk, right? I’ll get some.”

And just like that, Mandy ran off to the kitchen, leaving Mickey alone with the wet kitten in his arms, still wrapped in the small towel.  
“You really do look like Gallagher, you know that?” Mickey asked the kitten, then mentally kicked himself for talking to the thing. He ran a comforting finger down its back and the kitten purred in response. Mickey continued petting it absentmindedly, his mind preoccupied with thoughts of Ian. Was it possible that he had been wrong to not trust him? His initial impression of Gallagher had been a good one… so was it possible that they could actually become friends after all? He put his free hand on the side of his thigh, just above his knee, where it had been pressed against Ian’s.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One night turned into two, two turned into four, and before he knew it, Mickey had a full-fledged secret pet.

_One night turned into two, two turned into four, and before he knew it, Mickey had a full-fledged secret pet._

Mickey used the little bit of cash he’d been saving from selling his Xbox to buy food and a litter box for the kitten. He was lucky that the thing didn’t make any noise. It liked to play with the laces on his boots and loved scratching at his blanket, but that was about all the entertainment it needed.

“What are you going to name him?” Mandy asked him from her spot on his bed. She had Ian’s laptop spread out in front of her and was googling how to take care of a kitten.

“‘Him’? How do you even know it’s a boy?” Mickey was sitting cross-legged on the floor, letting the cat jump over and under his legs.

Mandy huffed and reached her hands out for the cat. Mickey reluctantly passed the orange-haired ball over to her. She lifted up the kitten’s tail and pointed at something but Mickey averted his gaze. He did _not_ need to know how she knew what to look for.

“Definitely a boy,” she confirmed. “How about Garfield?”

Mickey made a face. “Come on, Garfield? You can’t get more creative than that?” ...but he had to admit it _did_ kind of look like the cartoon, just smaller and without the monstrous eyes. “We can’t name him Garfield though,” Mickey continued, “because he’s a darker orange than the cartoon.”

“Well I don’t see you bursting with ideas,” she accused.

Mickey took a good look at the cat again. It had pretty much been fucked over, abandoned in the rain on the edge of a fire escape. Nothing in its life had been in its favor. The least he could do was give it a strong name…

“Fireball,” he said, already making up his mind.

Mandy burst out laughing. “He’s a cat, not a whiskey, idiot!” she managed to get out between fits.

“Shut up, bitch. He needs a strong name. He’s a big ball of fur the color of fire. It’s perfect.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say,” she told him, still smiling. She went back to using the computer and he went back to playing with his cat. “You like the name Fireball, don’t you?” he asked the kitten. It rubbed the top of its head against Mickey’s palm and made a low, contented purr before resuming his game of jumping through Mickey’s legs.

The sound of Mandy slamming the lid of the laptop shut eventually brought Mickey’s attention back. It was amazing how easily his mind would wander off lately.

“Thank your roommate for letting me use his computer,” she said smugly. Mandy had picked up on the fact that Mickey and Ian weren’t exactly buddies yet, but took every opportunity she could to push them closer together. Mickey had no idea why, but had a feeling she was looking out for him in some sort of twisted way. He kind of wished she would just mind her own business, but he knew better than to expect that from his sister, especially now that she had nothing else to do. Mandy had been over to his apartment almost every day since their dad had been thrown back into prison.

“Should we get dinner?” he asked her as casually as he could.

“I should probably head back,” Mandy told him after checking the time on her phone. Mickey was hit with another pang of guilt. It was his fault Mandy would be going back to an empty house.

“I'll walk you out,” he said, carefully putting the now-sleeping kitten onto his bed. He made an effort to close the door gently, then he and his sister walked through the living room, towards the front door.

Just as Mandy reached for the doorknob, it turned open from the other side and Ian walked in. “Oh, hey Mands,” he greeted her cheerily. He sneezed into his elbow just as he finished his sentence. “You leaving already, or do you wanna hang out? I got some new Xbox games from Carl,” he asked her after wiping his nose on his sleeve.

Mandy nodded, giving him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Ian, I have to get home. Got work early tomorrow morning ‘cause _someone’s_ gotta pay all the bills on her own now.” Mickey frowned as he heard her say that to Gallagher. He’d offered to help out but she had refused, and there wasn’t really much else he could do. Mickey bit his bottom lip and looked between his sister and his roommate.

Ian looked absolutely crestfallen, to the point where he [inadvertently or not] made those sad, puppy-dog eyes. Mickey forced himself to look away before he offered to hang out with the younger man himself, just to make him smile again.

“Buuut,” Mandy continued, “I know for a _fact_ that Mickey is free tonight. Have fun, you two,” she added, waving her fingers at them in a quick gesture of goodbye before fleeing through the door.

That fucking bitch. She didn't even leave him with any wiggle room. He finally looked up at Gallagher once she'd slammed the door shut and the fucking grin on his face made Mickey's stomach do that little jump it does on a roller-coaster when your body gets dragged in one direction but your insides are still moving in another.

“Do you prefer shooting games, fighting games or racing games?” he asked Mickey eagerly, apparently (and rightly) not giving him a chance to back out or come up with an excuse to go back into his room. “I got one of each from my little brother,” Ian explained.

“Since when do you have an Xbox?” Mickey wondered. He really regretted having to sell his.

“Lip's roommate bought the 360 so he just gave me his old one. So, what do you want to play?”

Mickey bit his lip and thought about it. He loved shooting games, but if what he'd seen of Ian's hand-to-hand skills were a testament to the rest of his ROTC training, Mickey wasn't sure he'd be able to take the kid on. “Which racing game is it?” he asked.

The redhead reached into his bag and pulled out the three green, plastic cases and flashed him the cover of the game in question.

“Most Wanted. Definitely.” It was the Need for Speed game that Mickey actually loved the most, because the whole point of it was to break as many laws as possible and get a shitload of cops chasing you, then escape. He couldn't have asked for a more perfect metaphor for his life. “It’s not exactly a multiplayer game though…” Mickey added. “How do you wanna do this?”

Ian walked around the sofa to the TV and put the game in. “Simple. You go first, see how much you can score before you get caught, then I’ll go.”

“Alright, fair enough.”

It took Mickey half an hour of gameplay before he ultimately got caught in a blockade he couldn’t plow through, his score setting a personal record. He put the controller down beside him and got up, stretching as he walked over to the fridge and got himself a beer. After a second’s hesitation, he got one for Ian too.

The younger boy thanked him and popped the can open but sneezed just as he brought it to his mouth.

“You sick or something?” Mickey asked. He didn’t have the patience to catch a cold from Ian.

“Nah, I’m fine,” Ian said, but the redness around his eyes made Mickey doubt him. Ian put the beer onto the coffee table and reached for the controller when he sneezed yet again.

Mickey raised a questioning eyebrow. “Yeah, sure you are…” he muttered.  
“No, really. It’s just allergies. I don’t know why they’ve been acting up so much lately. Usually they get better when the weather starts to get colder, but I’ve been feeling like crap for the last two weeks.”

It suddenly hit Mickey that it had been two weeks to the day since he’d rescued the kitten. He avoided making eye contact with Ian and asked, “What are you allergic to?”

“Well, pet dander, mostly, but sometimes pollen too, if it’s really bad out... but like I said, that’s mostly in the spring and summer. It’s weird. I’ll take some Claritin tonight,” he said with a shrug before starting his turn. “Don’t think this makes me weak or anything. I’m still gonna kick your ass at this game.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Mickey huffed.

“You don’t think I can beat you?”

Mickey looked at him skeptically and could see Ian eyeing him from the side. “Come on, Gallagher. “Staying one step ahead of the cops is the family business,” he told the younger boy, almost bragging.

Ian didn’t look intimidated at all. “Oh yeah?” Ian asked him, the corner of his lips forming a small smirk. “You wanna put your money where your mouth is?”

“What, you mean like a bet?” Mickey couldn’t pretend his ears didn’t perk up at the mention of a wager. He fucking _loved_ betting on things. It made life _so_ much more interesting.

“Yeah, exactly a bet. I bet you I’ll last longer than you did, _and_ that I’ll get a higher score.”

Mickey subconsciously edged forward in his seat, and the smile that played across his lips was carefree and happy. “What’re the stakes?”

Ian didn’t bother pausing the game, but instead, he confidently answered Mickey, “Loser pays for dinner.”

That seemed more than reasonable, and Mickey was admittedly hungry, so he nodded. When he realized Ian couldn’t see his head moving, he cleared his throat and said, “Deal.”

“Great. Prepare to have your ass handed to you,” Ian taunted.

“Fat chance, Gallagher.”

Except now that he was finally watching the screen, Mickey realized that Ian was actually pretty good at the game. He watched the younger man blow through traffic lights, speed past cameras and even drive against traffic on the highway with ease. It wasn’t long before his heat level was at five and the cops were setting up roadblocks and laying out the spike strips for him, but Ian breezed through them without hesitation, ramming into the backs of the police cars so as to avoid the heavy engines.

The longer Ian played, the more his bounty increased, until he not only beat Mickey’s high score but also set a new record on the game.

“You’re not gonna be a sore loser about this, are you?” Ian asked him with a grin, practically baiting Mickey for some kind of reaction.

Mickey bristled at the accusation. “If I’d known we were betting on the outcome, I would’a tried harder,” Mickey shot back, only it was complete bullshit. He’d played his best and he knew it.

“Is that so?” Ian asked him, eyes dancing in the light from the TV screen. He took a sip of his now-warm beer and made a disgusted face as he forced himself to swallow it down. “Alright then, how about you order dinner and we can have a rematch while we wait for the food to arrive?”

Despite having lost, Mickey couldn’t deny the fact that he had had fun. So, Mickey agreed and ordered Chinese, because he really couldn’t think of a good reason not to. And maybe, for once, he didn’t want to come up with an excuse to say no to Ian…


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gruesome horror movie had somehow broken the ice.

_The gruesome horror movie had somehow broken the ice._

Something had definitely changed after that night. It seemed like Mickey was more receptive to hanging out and being his friend, and Ian couldn’t have been happier. He found himself inviting his brother over less and less on nights that he didn’t have work or wasn’t at the library studying, in favor of spending time with Mickey.

They had so much in common, from their taste in food to their movie preferences, that it was hard for Ian to keep his feelings in check. It was easier when Mandy hung out with them, but on nights where it was just him and Mickey, he couldn’t keep the smile off his face after every single interaction they had.

Ian finished his shower and shut the water off, wrapping his large towel around his waist. He took his pill bottle out from behind the medicine cabinet and popped the cap, then cupped his hand under the faucet and got enough water to swallow down his nightly dose. He sat on the edge of the bathtub and rode out the immediate side effect, the small tremors that rocked through his body that his doctor had claimed would diminish over time but hadn’t.

Fifteen minutes later, he got up and made his way to the dark kitchen. It was late and all the lights were off. He had expected Mickey to be sleeping, but the older man was sitting on the couch and watching Family Guy reruns, face illuminated only by the glow of the screen.

“Hey,” he said, getting Mickey’s attention. “Still up?”

Mickey turned to see Ian and nodded, his gaze lingering on Ian’s abdomen and where the towel was tucked in on itself around his waist. Ian tried not to let the look get to him but he could already feel himself coming to attention from being eyed. Without warning he sneezed, and the violence of the action caused Mickey to return his attention to the TV.

“Yeah man,” he said to Ian, clearing his throat. “Had a fucked up day at work. Some people didn’t wanna cooperate… Assholes... but don’t worry, I convinced ’em otherwise,” he said with a little laugh. It dawned on Ian that Mickey was being more talkative than usual. He rarely ever shared details about work. He looked at the table and noticed the bottle of whiskey and the empty glass beside it. “ _Any_ way, I jus’ wanted to unwind a little, watch some shitty TV an’ all. You don’t mind, right? Is the noise botherin’ you?”

“No, no… not at all. I was just surprised to see you still up, that’s all. Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Your couch, your TV, your cable,” Mickey answered with a shrug.

“And your alcohol?” Ian added, getting a rewarding chuckle from the older man. Ian sat on the loveseat, fully aware of the fact that he was still covered in only his towel, but also knowing that Mickey was too drunk to complain about it.

“Yep,” Mickey answered, smacking his lips together as he said it. He leaned forward and refilled the glass.

“What, no ice?” Ian wondered when it looked like the brunet was going to drink the warm whiskey without diluting it.

“Too far, too lazy,” Mickey muttered. Going off of his appearance and the slow speed at which he spoke, Ian guessed that Mickey was more than a little intoxicated. He’d never seen his roommate like this before, and figured he _really_ must have had a rough day.

“Wait, I’ll get you some,” Ian offered. He went to the kitchen and returned with a lowball glass filled with ice. He passed it to Mickey, who took a handful of the cubes and added them to his drink. He then surprised Ian by opening the bottle once more and pouring some of the amber liquid into the new glass.

“For y’r troubles,” he explained.

“Thanks,” Ian said, bringing his glass up to toast with Mickey. “To making assholes cooperate,” he said, referring to the people Mickey had mentioned earlier.

The brunet laughed softly and clinked his glass against Ian’s with enough force to make a little of his drink splash over the edge. “Oops,” he whispered, eyes wide, before laughing again and downing half his glass on the next sip.

“So what was up today?” he asked, curious.

Mickey swirled his cup around, letting the ice melt a bit. “Ugh,” he grunted, “just summa the guys my dad used to do business with. They didn’t wanna deal w’me, now that he’s behind bars again, but I took care of it. Just hadda teach ‘em that I’m a Milk’vich too…” His speech became worse and more slurred with each sentence.

Ian opened his mouth to add another question but was cut off by Mickey’s laughter. “Hah! Look at his arm,” Mickey said, pointing to the screen. Ian turned to look at the TV and noticed it was the episode where Quagmire discovered internet porn for the first time.

“Oh yeah, this ep. was great. Who the hell doesn’t use the internet for porn?”

“I don’t,” Mickey piped up, all too quickly.

“What? How is that possible?”

“I d’n have a computer, idiot. R’member?”

And yeah, Ian knew that, but for some reason he hadn’t made the connection in his head. He had been using the computer for his spanking needs since Lip had found his porn stash hidden behind their dresser and had learned he was gay. He just assumed that everyone did it too. “What about your phone?” he wondered.

“Not a smart phone.”

He couldn’t keep himself from asking more questions. “So what do you use? Magazines?”

Mickey shook his head and then brought a finger up to his forehead and tapped on his temple.

This time it was Ian’s turn to laugh. “Really? You don’t use any other, um, material?”

Mickey’s eyes flicked down to Ian’s towel and his tongue shot out to lick the corner of his lip. “Nope,” he answered, once again letting his lips smack together on the P sound.

“Well that sucks…” Ian responded, staring at Mickey’s pale face in the dim light of the room. From the corner of his eye he noticed the older man palm himself and readjust.

“Tell me ‘bout it. So fuckin’ horny,” he muttered.

Ian knew what he wanted to say but was fucking scared of Mickey’s possible reaction. He thought he saw lust in Mickey’s eyes, but that could have just been the alcohol. He tried to swallow but his throat felt as dry as sandpaper. He took a quick sip of the whiskey.

“Umm… You want a hand?” he asked, eyes moving to Mickey’s pants, where he could now clearly see the outline of his roommate’s hard-on. _Or maybe a mouth?_ he thought. He felt his cheeks burning with embarrassment and wanted to put his face into his hands because of how cliché his line was.

Ian expected Mickey to laugh it off as a joke, or to tell him to fuck off and get his faggoty ass away from him, or really, anything else. He sure as fucking hell didn’t expect Mickey to unzip his pants and draw his dick out.

It wasn’t exactly how Ian imagined it. It wasn’t the biggest thing he had seen, but he was in _no_ way complaining; it definitely excelled in the girth department. After almost two months of dreaming about this moment, there Mickey was, displaying himself in front of Ian, inviting the younger man to touch him. Before he had time to wonder if it was really happening or if he was just dreaming it, Mickey's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"You g'na just look at it, Gallagher? Or're ya gonna suck it?"

Ian didn't need to be told twice. He slid off the couch and to his knees, then quickly edged closer to Mickey until he was kneeling between the older man's legs. He paused only long enough to wet his lips. It was really fucking happening.

Ian put his hands onto Mickey’s knees with uncertainty but when his roommate didn’t flinch from the contact, he leaned forward to press his freshly-wet lips to the head of Mickey's penis. It was warm and soft as he tentatively pushed his tongue forward and gently lapped at the spongy head. He could already taste the little bit of precum that had beaded out through the small slit at the top.

Mickey audibly exhaled when Ian widened his lips and took more of him into his mouth. He had to flatten his tongue against the underside of Mickey’s dick in order to allow his mouth to slide down past the head. Once he was about halfway down Mickey’s shaft, Ian pulled back until he was back at the glans, then tightened the suction in his mouth and pulled up over the remaining portion of the head, sucking on it lightly with his lips. Mickey groaned in pleasure and Ian immediately engulfed him again, this time swallowing him down to the base, until he could feel the coarse black hairs around his mouth and nose.

Ian drew his hands up Mickey’s jeans, moving them closer so that his thumbs were resting on Mickey’s inner thighs, palms pressed flat on the denim, long fingers framing the older man’s crotch as he proceeded to bob his head up and down, easily sliding along Mickey’s thick column. He looked up to see that Mickey’s eyes were closed and that his head was thrown back.

Ian heard Mickey’s breathing become shallower the longer he continued sucking him. Each deep groan to escape Mickey’s lips was like a little reward to Ian, providing affirmation that what he was doing felt good and also encouraging him to continue.

His movements didn’t falter when he felt Mickey’s hand at the back of his neck, gently pulling him closer and guiding him to increase his speed, nor when he felt Mickey’s thighs lift up and repeatedly thrust into his mouth. Ian hollowed out his cheeks and sucked him with more pressure, easily keeping the new pace Mickey had set.

Mickey’s gyrations soon began to stutter, and Ian could tell he was near the edge. Mickey was grunting on each thrust into the redhead’s mouth, and when Ian looked up again he saw bright blue irises watching him through heavily lidded eyes. Ian held his gaze while he ran his mouth up and down over Mickey’s dick a few more times, until the thrusts became erratic and he felt the hot stream of cum hit the back of this throat in a sudden and powerful burst.

Mickey held Ian’s head still with both hands then, pumping the rest of his load into the younger man’s warm mouth with a drawn out moan. Ian was forced to breath through his nose and swallow down Mickey’s seed, not that he would have had it any other way, given the opportunity. When he was done, Mickey let go of Ian’s head and Ian was able to pull back.

He licked the corner of his lips, tasting the stray bit of Mickey’s salty seed that had dribbled down the side of his mouth. His jaw felt sore but it was nothing compared to the high he was on, having just blown the guy he’d been crushing on for so long. He leaned forward to

kiss Mickey but the brunet turned his head away. “Kiss me and I’ll cut your fuckin’ tongue out,” he bit out through clenched teeth.

Ian was disappointed for only a few seconds before he shrugged it off. Some people just weren’t into kissing; he could accept that. He sat back on his heels, painfully aware of the awkwardness that weighed so heavily in the air in the wake of their quick act.

“Gimme that,” Mickey said, breaking the silence. Ian looked down to where Mickey’s hand was reaching, and realized he meant the towel. Ian’s face was flushed from the effort of the blowjob but he would bet money on the fact that he reddened tenfold after Mickey’s demand. Not only was he naked underneath the towel, but he also had a rock-hard boner, the likes of which he hadn’t had since he was a young teenager getting sucked off by his boss at the Kash and Grab.

When Ian didn’t comply, Mickey huffed a frustrated sigh and waved his hand impatiently. “C’mon, Gallagher. Gotta clean myself off…”

Ian slowly untied the towel from around his waist and passed it to Mickey, who proceeded to wipe his softening cock with it. “Y’re shy ‘bout me seein’ your dick,” he said, eyeing the entirety of Ian’s package, ginger pubes, balls and all, “but ya got no problem offerin’ to suck mine?” he teased.

Ian swallowed again, building up the courage to reply. “What about mine?” he asked Mickey, looking down at his exposed and throbbing dick, standing erect despite his nerves.

“Maybe next time, Firecrotch,” Mickey replied, dropping the towel back onto Ian’s lap. He grabbed his whiskey and stumbled back to his room, leaving Ian alone in the dark living room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wasn't gonna write the smut. aren't ya glad Tammy and Jinko convinced me otherwise?? :-P


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian thought things would get awkward after they hooked up, but it seemed like Mickey was content with them being fuck buddies.

_Ian thought things would get awkward after they hooked up, but it seemed like Mickey was content with them being fuck buddies._

Ian's biggest fear the next morning had been the thought of Mickey telling him that what happened was only the result of too much alcohol. To his great relief, the first time hadn’t been a fluke. Over the course of the next few weeks, they not only christened the living room, but also every other surface of the entire apartment, with the exception of Mickey’s room. Ian didn’t know what was up with that but Mickey would get very defensive to the point of being sketchy whenever Ian suggested fucking in that room.

Never in his wildest dreams had Ian ever expected his relationship with Mickey to develop into what it had become. He found himself passing up on opportunities to go home and visit his siblings just for the chance to spend more time with Mickey. Whether they were just hanging out and having a drink, watching TV or playing video games, or even lazily reading the morning paper, passing the Classifieds back and forth over their cereal, Ian couldn’t get enough of him. Even if they were chilling with Mandy, some shared Mickey time was better than no Mickey time. Of course the _best_ spent time was when Ian was balls deep inside the older man, fucking him so hard that he had to bite Mickey’s shoulder to keep from screaming aloud from the sheer force of his orgasm.

The strangest thing about it all was that Ian had been feeling unusually happy for the last month. He was baffled by it because he wasn’t in a manic phase. It wasn’t his fucked up brain chemistry making him feel things that he wasn’t supposed to be feeling. He was just genuinely happy, and Mickey was the cause of his happiness.

It was late on a random Wednesday night towards the end of November. Ian and Mickey had just finished their second round and were sitting on the floor of the kitchen eating leftovers, both too lazy and too exhausted to get up and walk the remaining ten feet to the table. Ian’s phone began vibrating, so he stretched over to where his jeans lay discarded on the tiled floor and fished the cell out of his pocket. He checked the screen before answering and saw that it was his sister calling.

“Hey Fi,” he said into the phone while chewing on some noodles.

“Hey stranger. How’s life? I feel like we haven’t seen you in forever,” his sister said over the line.

“Heh, yeah. Been busy with school and all,” he explained, much to Mickey’s amusement. The older man snorted from his spot on the floor just a couple of feet away from him and Ian aimed a precise kick to Mickey’s shin to quiet him down.

His sister was quiet before she commented with a knowing, “I see... New boyfriend?”

Ian’s smile fell and he wondered, yet again, how the heck his sister knew him so well. He felt very self-conscious all of a sudden, as if somehow Fiona was watching him, as if she could see him through the phone. “Uhm, yeah… something like that,” he told her evasively. He was sure that Mickey would have punched him in the face if he heard Ian refer to him as his _boyfriend_. He carefully averted his eyes from the naked brunet.

“You should bring him over for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night,” she suggested.

“Shit! Fuck. Is tomorrow Thanksgiving?” It had completely slipped his mind.

Fiona was the one to snort aloud this time. “What, you didn’t notice that you didn’t have any classes?” she wondered.

“Uh, no… I’ve been really busy… studying…”

“Yeah, studying. So, you wanna bring your ‘study partner’ over? I can have Debs bring down the extra chair from her bedroom.”

Ian looked up at Mickey again, who stared back at him with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t really think that’s a good idea. What time’s dinner?”

“Six o’clock. Lip’s bringing Amanda and Debbie’s bringing her new boyfriend. Don’t be late!”

She didn’t wait for his reply and had already hung up before he realized the conversation was over.

“What was that about?” Mickey asked with his mouth full of chicken.

“My sister wanted me to invite you over for dinner tomorrow. Did you know it’s Thanksgiving?”

Mickey grunted. “We don’t do Thanksgiving.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Milkoviches,” Mickey explained, “don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.” He finished chewing his bite and swallowed. “It’s simple.”

“Okay… but why?” Ian asked, not really understanding.

“Come on. What the fuck do we have to be thankful for? There’s only so many times you can sit through a fucked up meal with people you hate before you wisen up and stop trying altogether. At the last Thanksgiving dinner we actually had, Mandy spent the whole day in the kitchen, cooking a real fucking turkey for my dad and my brothers. You know how that ended?” Mickey asked pointing at Ian with his fork.

Ian shook his head.

“The Lions scored a touchdown against the Bears, putting them in the lead with enough time to run down the clock, and dad sent the turkey flying into the fucking flat screen, that’s what. So, we don’t do Thanksgiving.”

There was a finality in his voice, and Ian didn’t dare argue. He understood what it meant to have a fucked up family. For God’s sake, their mother had tried killing herself during one of their Thanksgiving dinners, but even despite that, Fiona had made it a point to never let the younger Gallaghers think of the holiday as a bad thing. She filled the table with food and made the day about happy thoughts and especially close friends and family.

“I’ll bring you and Mandy some leftovers,” he promised, leaning forward to grab the carton of sesame chicken out of Mickey’s hand.

“Fuck you,” Mickey muttered, throwing his plastic fork at Ian’s head.  
“I will, as soon as I’m done eating this chicken,” he teased, flashing Mickey a lascivious grin.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Becoming Ian’s fuck buddy was the best decision Mickey had ever made.

_Becoming Ian’s fuck buddy was the best decision Mickey had ever made._

"Harder," he grunted, his words coming out muffled around his forearm. Ian definitely heard him though, because the next slam of his hips against Mickey’s ass sent them both sliding forward onto Ian’s mattress. The younger man recovered quickly, bringing one leg up to secure his footing, and resumed pounding into Mickey exactly how he liked it. Mickey’s face was pressed into the sheets and all he could do to brace himself against the onslaught of Ian’s perfect aimed thrusts was use his elbows to lift himself up and push back just enough to meet Ian halfway.

They were both panting hard, but Mickey was embarrassed to admit he was the louder one of the two, unable to hold in the groans that escaped through his lips each time Gallagher’s enormous cock pressed against his prostate. “Fuck, yeah… right there… ugh…” he muttered, as the sensation moved through his whole body every single time. He could feel his orgasm building inside of him.

“Almost there,” he told Gallagher through gritted teeth. He felt Ian’s grip tighten around his hips and didn’t miss the increased pace of his Ian’s thrusts, probably a result of the redhead rushing to catch up to Mickey. He had to hand it to Ian: the guy had a lot of control. It had only taken him a short time to get used to Mickey’s preferences, one of them being that he didn’t like being fucked for long after he’d already come, so Ian made every effort to satisfy the both of them, including paying attention to timing.

Ian let go of Mickey’s right side and reached around his waist to wrap his fingers around Mickey’s dick. He let their rhythm dictate how quickly he pumped Mickey, matching each tug with his thrusts. “Ugh,” Mickey groaned after Ian added a little flicking motion to his wrist each time his hand reached the head of Mickey’s erection.

He closed his eyes as everything stopped for a moment, the sensation so intense that he lost all sense of control. In that one instant, the only thing Mickey felt was pure ecstasy. He opened his eyes a few seconds later and exhaled as he rode out the rest of his orgasm. He felt the added slickness on his dick as Ian continued stroking him, more gently now that he had come, but still helping to get every last bit out of him.

Ian absentmindedly wiped his hand on his bedsheet and his thrusts became more deliberate once he returned it to mirror the other one that was still gripping Mickey’s waist. He kept his slower pace but Mickey could Ian’s breathing falter. Half a minute later, he felt one final slap of Ian’s hips, and the redhead held them together, his cock firmly sheathed to the hilt inside Mickey’s ass as he shuddered and came deep within the older man.

Mickey felt the warmth of Ian’s semen inside of him and let out a huff of annoyance when Ian didn’t immediately pull out of him, but instead leaned forward, laying his body down over Mickey’s, his sweaty chest connecting with every inch of Mickey’s back.

It was hot and disgusting, but Mickey didn’t pull away or shove Ian away like he wanted to. In the last week or two, he had found himself making more and more allowances for his roommate, and that included letting him enjoy his afterglow, even if it meant Mickey ended up being the uncomfortable one.

He let it go on for about five minutes, until the heat radiating off of Ian got to be too much. He shifted so that he could slip out from the side and rolled off the bed, cringing as he felt Ian’s seed slowly dribble down the inside of his thighs.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” he told him as he took in the sight on the bed. It was a disaster zone. Their clothes were strewn everywhere, along with Ian’s pillows and his comforter. The only thing that was still where it was supposed to be was the bedsheet, but it sported wet, circular splotches of cum that would most probably leave stains.

Ian turned onto his side and propped himself up with his elbow. “A shower sounds great,” he mumbled.

Mickey fought the smile playing at his lips. He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell being rung numerous times in succession.

“I’ll get it,” Ian said. With a lot of effort, he got up and pulled the sheet off the mattress with him, wrapping it around his waist like a makeshift towel. Mickey’s eyes trained down the redhead’s torso, from his solid chest to his perfect abs, muscles still tight from their exertion, then continued all the way down to the outline of his bones at his hips ‒ Mickey’s second favorite physical feature of Ian’s ‒ which basically formed an arrow pointing to his _most_ favorite feature.

Ian noticed the direction of Mickey’s stare and flashed him a lopsided and completely dorky grin. “Go ahead and start your shower and I’ll join you a soon as I deal with whoever the fuck is at the door,” he suggested.

Mickey smiled back and gave him a slight nod, then busied himself with looking around for his boxers as Ian gingerly walked out of the room. He remembered he’d still had them around his knees when Ian had started fingering him while giving him another flawlessly spectacular blowjob, so he checked at the foot of the bed and spotted them beside the lube. He picked both up and tossed the lube onto the mattress before putting the boxers on.

He couldn’t believe that he had almost let his pride come in the way of him and Ian hooking up. So what if Ian sublet the apartment from of his ex? Mickey couldn’t be jealous of some old guy he didn’t even know. It had probably all been a misunderstanding anyway, one that had led him to hold a grudge about something so small for a month and a half when they could have been having amazing fucking sex instead.

He shook his head and made his to the bathroom, but heard Ian’s voice carry over from down the hall.

“I don’t want you here, Frank. I told you last time. I don’t have any extra cash. All my money goes to paying rent.”

“Ian, come on. Give a man a break… I know you must have something saved up for a rainy day. Didn’t Fiona raise you to always have a back-up plan?”

Mickey made a beeline for the living room. He saw Ian standing a few feet into the apartment, talking to an older man dressed shabbily in dirty clothes that were definitely not appropriate for the cold Chicago winter just around the corner. The man had blocked the doorway and was standing with one hand on the door frame and the other on the door. As Mickey walked closer, he could see the man’s weathered face and could see the pieces of trash stuck to his clothes, as well as the vomit in his hair.

“Get out. Even if I had anything, which I don’t, why the fuck would I give it to you? You said it yourself: _Fiona_ raised us. _Fiona_ taught us to be prepared. _Fiona_. Not _you_.”

“Have pity on a sick man… I’m dying, son. I just need a little cash, just a _little_ ,” he emphasized, holding his hands out in front of him with his thumb and index finger barely touching, “to help ease the pain.”

Ian let out an incredulous laugh then. “This is unreal. You were fucking given a second chance at life and we’re the ones who have to suffer because you blew it, again? You’re unbelievable, Frank. Get out of my apartment.”

It was only when he heard the man’s name a second time and saw his face from closer up that he recognized Frank as the famous drunk from the Alibi, the one his dad and uncle had made fun of for weeks when the police had discovered he’d been raped by some girl.

“You ungrateful piece of shit,” Frank said, raising his arm into the air, ready to deliver a backhanded blow to Ian, but Mickey ran forward and grabbed the old man’s wrist.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing?” he asked, eyebrows practically raised to his hairline.

“Mind your own fucking business. This is between me and my son,” Frank spat, and Mickey crinkled his nose at the smell of alcohol and puke that wafted over as he spoke.

“It’s okay, Mick,” Ian said, putting a hand on Mickey’s arm to get him to lower it. “He was just leaving, right Frank?” he asked his dad.

“Right,” Frank grouched.

Mickey looked at Ian and saw the worry in the younger man’s eyes, so he reluctantly let go of Frank and the drunken man snatched his hand back quickly, rubbing around his wrist as if he’d actually been hurt.

“Get the fuck outta here,” Mickey told him, pushing Frank towards the door with both hands on his back. He couldn’t explain the rage he felt towards the man, especially considering the fact that he’d never even met him before, but he could see how much his mere presence was upsetting Ian, and Mickey knew he had to protect him.

Frank shimmied away from Mickey and stepped out of his reach, muttering, “alright, alright,” but the brunet stayed close until Frank was on the other side of the door. He turned his head for a fraction of a second when he reached for the door and the next thing he knew, stars were exploding behind his eyes.

“What the fuck?!” he shouted, cupping his nose. He blinked through the pain to see Frank laughing while backing away from the door, forehead covered in blood, grinning and flipping them off with both hands.

“The fucker headbutted me,” Mickey said incredulously, still holding his nose with one hand. The blood gushed over his face and down the front of his bare chest. He used the other hand to slam the door shut.

“Oh my God,” Ian panicked. He looked like a chicken without a head as he darted around Mickey, still naked save for the bed sheet around his waist, not knowing what to do or how to help. If Mickey hadn’t just been headbutted by the guy’s father, he probably would have found it very amusing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

“I’m fine,” Mickey said, voice coming out as garbled mess.

“Do you need a towel? Let me get you a towel. Oh and ice. Shit, I don’t think we have an ice pack. Maybe peas? I don’t think we have peas either. _Fuck_.”

“Ay, relax. I’m fine.” He’d never been suckerpunched before but he’d been in his fair share of fights and knew that the first step was to get the bleeding to stop. “Get a towel,” he instructed Ian.

The redhead ran off and Mickey somehow made his way to the couch. By the time Ian came back, Mickey was sitting with his head tilted back. He took the offered towel and pressed it to his nose, applying pressure help to ebb the flow. The disgusting copper taste of the blood on his lips made him want to throw up.

“I’m so sorry,” Ian continued, pacing in front of Mickey, between the coffee table and the TV. “I can’t believe he fucking did that. I’m so sorry. Are you okay? What can I do to help?”

His worrying was actually making Mickey feel dizzy. “Just, sit down, until it stops bleeding,” Mickey said, closing his eyes.

He felt the couch shift under Ian’s weight when the younger man sat beside him. He could feel Ian watching him, even with his eyes clothes, and could only guess at how helpless he was feeling, but was thankful that his roommate didn’t try to make him talk.

The long minutes passed by and Mickey eventually opened his eyes and lifted his head up. He carefully removed the towel and didn’t feel like his nose was bleeding anymore, thankfully. It was a shame they didn’t have any peas or corn in the freezer; he could already feel it starting to swell.

Mickey turned to look at Ian, who groaned when he finally laid eyes on his roommate’s face. “Can you bring me another towel, a wet one this time?” Mickey asked. Ian vehemently nodded and shot up off the couch. He returned with the towel as requested but this time didn’t hand it to Mickey.

“No, let me do it. It’s the least I can do…”

Mickey didn’t have the energy to argue. He rested his head back against the cushions again and let Gallagher carefully dab at his face, wiping the dried blood away.

“Thank you,” Ian said after a few moments of quiet.

Mickey bit his lip but the movement made his nose sting. He sighed and let his lip go from between his teeth, accepting the fact that his nose was probably broken.

“No, Mick. I’m serious,” Ian told him, his words gaining momentum. “My dad is a piece of shit and don’t even know why the fuck I let him in in the first place. Fiona got me that chain lock for a reason and I’m a fucking idiot for never using it. You didn’t have to get involved like that, but you did, and I’m glad you did, because I don’t think I could’ve gotten him to leave. But _you_ did, so thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” he finally huffed out, but he couldn’t deny that he felt a warmth in his stomach from the way Ian was looking at him so appreciatively. His eyes shone with something Mickey hadn’t seen directed at him for a long time, not since his mom had been around, and it left him feeling scared.

And before Mickey knew what was happening, Ian was moving closer, eyes closed and lips slightly parted.

Mickey put his hand out and pressed it against Ian’s chest, keeping him at bay. “What the hell did I tell you about kissing me?” he choked.

“Mickey…” Ian tried again, reaching a hand out to touch his arm.

“Get the fuck off me,” he spat, batting Ian’s arm away.

Ian’s face fell, the light from his eyes now twisted into something else. Something sad. “I know I’m not the only one who feels this way... You have feelings for me so why can’t you just fucking admit it? Or is that too fucking gay for you, to admit you like another guy?!”  
Mickey didn’t know how to answer him, so he got up without a word and went into his room. And if he spent the rest of the night cuddling with Fireball, that was nobody’s business but his and the cat’s.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If anyone could hold a grudge, it was Mickey Milkovich, and Ian was weak in comparison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for being patient with me even though I broke the rules of this Big Bang round and didn't post the whole fic at once. This one's a short chapter but the next one's a lot longer.

_If anyone could hold a grudge, it was Mickey Milkovich, and Ian was weak in comparison._

Ian was sitting on the couch in the living room with his computer and a textbook open on his lap. He had neglected his school work long enough, so he was finally working on one of the final assignments he'd been procrastinating doing, particularly since there was only a week left before the end of the semester.

He and Mickey hadn't spoken much in the last couple of days. In fact, Mickey had spent the entire time avoiding Ian, just like he had after he’d first moved in. He was currently in his room, and Ian had spent the last fifteen minutes staring a hole through the door.

He hadn’t seen Mickey since a couple of hours earlier. His nose was still a big, purple, bruised mess, but the outer edges were already turning yellow, a small yet promising sign of improvement.

No matter how much he missed Mickey ‒ which, if he was being honest with himself, was a _fucking_ shitload, Ian couldn't bring himself to apologize. He knew he'd pushed Mickey before the older man had been ready, but he also knew he wasn't imagining the changes he'd felt in their relationship: the way Mickey had started letting him bite and kiss his neck while they fucked, or how he didn't rush anymore to get away from him after they'd finished; the way he made more and more time to hang out with Ian even though he was obviously exhausted after work, or how he made sure to pick up a copy of the paper every day and left the comics open for Ian to read when he was done with the Classifieds. They were all little things, but taken together, they’d meant a lot to the redhead.

He was still staring at Mickey’s door when he heard the little alert for an incoming message on his computer. He opened his email and saw the new message.

> _Hey,_
> 
> _Sorry I've kinda been MIA lately. They've been working us to the bone, man. I'm not kidding: some kid actually broke his leg during training in the morning and had to be taken to the ER, but not before we all got to see his bone sticking out through his shin, cracked right down the middle. It was fucking sick._
> 
> _Anyway, I'm gonna be coming home for Christmas soon and definitely wanna see the new place! We should go out to Fairytale too, don't you think? For old time’s sake... Maybe take advantage of your employee discount too. :D_
> 
> _I’ll be in town Wednesday night so send me your new address!_
> 
> _Nick_

Ian hadn’t thought about Nick in over a month. Now that he was thinking about it, he realized he had deliberately _not_ thought about Nick, because every time he did, it just made him sad. He’d had much better and happier things to occupy his mind with, all starting with the letter M and rhyming with the word hickey.

He hit reply but then he paused, thinking over his words. He didn’t think he could just go out and hang out… not when the only person he _wanted_ to go to a club with wasn’t speaking with him. Instead of typing a response out, he pushed the laptop away and walked over to Mickey’s room. He brought his hand up to the handle. The metal felt cold in his palm. Try as he might, he just couldn’t get himself to go in, as if barging in on Mickey was crossing some sort of invisible line. He drew his hand back and instead knocked three times on the hard, wooden door.

There were a few moments of silence before he heard Mickey grunt a rough, “what?”

“Umm… My friend Nick’s coming to visit next Wednesday… He wants to go out, maybe to the club I bartend at. You wanna come with us? I know gay clubs aren’t really your thing but-”

He didn’t need to finish his sentence because Mickey had turned the music up to an obnoxious level in his bedroom.

“...I just really don’t want to go without you…” he muttered to himself with a sigh. Great.

Ian went back to the couch to grab his laptop and went into his room. There was no way he was going to be able to do any homework ‒ not with his brain so preoccupied. He was so annoyed with everything... with Mickey, with his bullshit end-of-term assignments, and even with Nick.

Because how could Nick ‒ a guy who had practically been obsessed with him for the last three years ‒ ignore him for months and then send him a random email announcing his visit and expect Ian to be ready to go out, just like that? It was like he didn’t even notice the effect he’d had on Ian since he’d gone to West Point.

In fact, Ian wasn’t just annoyed. He was _angry_. He got his phone from the charge and pressed the speed dial button for Lip. His brother answered after the first ring.

“Hey, little bro. What’s happening?” Lip asked, and Ian could hear the laughter in his voice even through the phone.

“Shut up, I’m not your little brother,” he spat, frowning. They were barely a year apart ‒ Irish twins, everyone said ‒ but Lip never passed up an opportunity to remind Ian of who came first.

Lip chuckled. He actually had the nerve to fucking chuckle. “Technically you are, though…”

“Well technically, you’re an asshole,” Ian shot back.

“Whoa, sounds like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. What’s wrong? Was a certain ex-con too rough with you last night?”

And again, Ian kicked himself for ever telling his brother the truth about him and Mickey hooking up. He’d endured countless nights of his brother’s teasing after the initial shock had worn off, and after Ian had assured him that Mickey was _not_ just luring him into some messed up gay-bashing trap.

Ian sighed, not even knowing where to start. He had called Lip for a reason: he needed someone to vent to, to talk out his issues with, and to get advice from, and since Lip was the only one he’d told about Mickey, his options were limited.

He decided he had to start from the beginning, and once he’d made that decision, the words just poured out. “Frank came by and tried to get money off me. He tried to hit me but Mickey intervened and got him to leave, only Frank headbutted him on his way out and Mickey’s nose was bleeding all over the place… so I got him a towel and everything and helped clean him up and then…” he paused and bit his lip. It was so stupid. Even as he explained it to his brother, it sounded so stupid to him. “...I tried to kiss him, but he stopped me. He doesn’t believe in kissing… and at first I thought it was just because we were hooking up and everything and it didn’t really mean anything, but now I’m sure it meant something. I told him to just admit he had feelings for me… but he ran into his room and hasn’t talked to me in days. It’s like the first month he lived here all over again,” Ian said, taking a deep breath once he had finished.

But instead of offering support, Lip continued teasing him. “Dude, what’d I tell you? You barked up the wrong tree with Mickey Milkovich.”

“I know what he felt with me… You can’t fake that.”

“Maybe you’re just seeing things because you _want_ to see them. Ever considered that?”

Ian didn’t feel like answering Lip. Instead, he told him about Nick’s email, and how he’d asked Mickey to come along to the club.

“Hold up. You invited your boyfriend to go with you to the Fairytale?”

“He’s not my _boyfriend_ …” Ian corrected.

“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck,” Lip argued, laughing at his own cleverness. “So you mean to tell me you invited your closeted roommate ‒ the same one who won’t leave the apartment with you or admit to having feelings for you ‒ to go clubbing with you at the place you used to dance at, and you’re upset he turned you down? Are you serious?”

“Key words: ‘ _used to_ ’ as in past tense. And it’s not like he knows I used to dance there. Plus, don’t you think it’ll be weird if I just go alone with Nick?”

“‘Alone with Nick’? It’s a crowded place. What, are you worried he’s gonna take advantage of you?”

“No, it’s not that…” Ian started.

“Then what? You don’t trust _yourself_ to keep it in your pants if your guardian roommate isn’t around to keep an eye on you? Afraid you’ll revert to your old ways and give him a lap dance or two?”

“No,” Ian said more firmly, scoffing at his brother.

“Then what?”

“I… I don’t know.” Except he did know. Mickey was like his drug and the thought of being anywhere without him was unbearable. The lack of contact was killing him, and he knew he was weak for feeling that way.

“Exactly. There’s no good reason not to go, so just suck it up. If Mickey doesn’t wanna go with you, then that’s his fucking loss, right?”

“Right…” Ian said, not totally convinced, but slowly accepting the idea more and more.

He ended the call with his brother and went back to the reply message he’d already opened. The cursor flashed slowly at the top left corner of the page, eagerly awaiting his words.

> _Hey Nick,_
> 
> _That sounds great. I’ll text you the address. See you Wednesday._
> 
> _Ian_

He hit send and sighed. Great.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had been eight days since Ian had tried to kiss him. Nearly two hundred hours since they'd last fucked. Almost twelve thousand minutes of not talking, and each one was torture to Mickey.

_It had been eight days since Ian had tried to kiss him. Nearly two hundred hours since they'd last fucked. Almost twelve thousand minutes of not talking, and each one was torture to Mickey._

Mickey was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and watching his frozen dinner rotate in the microwave when Ian came in, dressed to the nines. His hair was still wet from his shower and Mickey could smell something – cologne, he realized – in the air as his roommate passed by. Since when did Gallagher even wear cologne?

He wanted to ask Ian what he was so dressed up for. He wanted to know why he smelled so good. He wanted to ask him to watch a movie with him. He wanted to tell him he had overreacted. He wanted things to go back to how they had been...

...but apologies were not something Mickey did. So instead, he continued to ignore Ian. He continued to watch his stupid dinner turn in the microwave. He continued to wonder why Ian had put so much effort into getting ready for the night. He continued to hate himself.

Only, Mickey didn't have to wonder about Ian's clothes or cologne for long, because before his dinner was even ready, the doorbell rang. He watched from the corner of his eye and saw Ian carefully checked who it was before opening the door and welcoming in the man on the other side with a genuine grin.

"Holy shit," the man said, enveloping Ian in an enthusiastic hug. "Ian Gallagher, as I live and breathe. What’s happened to you?" He held Ian back and ruffled his wet hair. "What the fuck is this? What happened to the signature buzz cut?"

"Yeah, yeah. You're just jealous I get to grow my hair out," Ian said back, running his own hand over his hair to put it back into place.

Mickey deliberately turned and looked anywhere except at Ian and his blond friend, making himself as unnoticeable as possible. If he could have hidden behind the counter, he would have. The guy with Ian was tall – at least a foot taller than Mickey – and had his hair in a standard-issue military cut, but his most noticeable attribute was his physique. He was fucking built. Ian was a pretty muscular guy, but his friend probably had twice the amount of muscle he did.

“Who’s your friend?” he heard the guy whisper to Ian.

“Oh, that’s Mickey. My…” he paused and Mickey felt his own breath hitch, “roommate,” Ian finished. “Hey Mick, this is Nick, my friend from high school I started telling you about.”

Mickey turned around when Ian addressed him directly and looked Nick up and down properly. He had skin as pale as Ian’s, minus the adorable freckles, and Mickey immediately spotted the patriotic tattoo of an eagle flying with an American flag on the man’s forearm when he extended a hand to Mickey. He would have normally shrugged the guy off but something made Mickey return the handshake, which immediately turned into an unspoken test of who had the firmer grip on the other one’s hand. Mickey thought the bones in his fingers would be crushed by Nick, but he held on with a grin until Nick finally relented and released his hand.

“Nick’s home for the holidays,” Ian explained. “He goes to West Point,” he added.

Mickey didn’t miss the subtle drop in the volume of Ian’s words or the flicker of something ‒ what, sadness? regret? ‒ in Ian’s eyes, but he was sure Nick missed it, because the taller man continued grinning as if it was the happiest day of his life.

“You didn’t tell me you had a roommate!” Nick went on. “Hope he’s not like any of the people Frank rented his room to. Remember that pregnant Korean? Or the hooker? Bro, your family has had _the_ shittiest luck with roommates… And seriously,” Nick grabbed Ian by his bicep and gave it a tight squeeze. “What’s happened here? Have you given up on exercise completely?”

Mickey ignored Nick and watched Ian’s face throughout the exchange. It was like every time the brat opened his mouth, Ian’s smile fell by a fraction. What kind of friend would bring up Ian’s piece-of-crap dad or imply that he wasn’t fit enough? Mickey had felt what Ian’s arms could do, especially when they pressed him flat against the tiles as they fucked in the shower, or held him propped up against the wall when they were too fucking horny to make it to the bed or the sofa. Mickey had absolutely _no_ complaints about Gallagher’s body. Not a single one.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you back in shape in no time, starting with some cardio. Ready to dance your ass off at the Fairytale? And I’m not being literal,” he said with a wink, but the joke went over Mickey’s head.

“Uh, yeah. Let’s go,” Ian said, giving Mickey one last hopeful glance.

And Mickey couldn’t decide if it was jealously or the need to protect Ian that made him change his mind, but before he knew it he was calling for them to hold up. Ian spun back around, eyes growing as he realized what Mickey had said. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Mickey was sure he saw a smile even return to Gallagher’s lips. “Gimme a minute to change my shirt and I’ll come with you.”

“Weren’t you warming up dinner?” Nick wondered, motioning to the microwave.

“Missin’ one meal won’t make me starve,” he mumbled, beelining towards his bedroom. He quickly checked to make sure Fireball had enough water to get through the night and put on the only decent dress-shirt he owned, a black collared one that needed serious ironing, but there was no time for that now. All he did was grab his wallet and black boots before heading out.

“Alright, let’s do this!” Nick said happily once Mickey had rejoined them.

They took the train to Boystown, something Mickey never expected he’d ever be doing. He spent the entire ride watching Ian and Nick talk, but none of it made sense to him. Why was Ian friends with a dick like Nick? It seemed like they had more than outgrown each other, especially since all Nick did was tell Ian about his school and training and where he hoped to be stationed after graduation. It was easy for Mickey to tune him out.

To Mickey’s surprise, Ian didn’t take him agreeing to coming along as a chance to suddenly talk to him. Mickey had been sure that the redhead would assume his small allowance was his way of conceding their fight or of admitting that Ian was right all along, but the younger man didn’t say a word to him, just listened intently to whatever crap Nick was spewing, laughing or smiling when the time was right. It made Mickey so angry to see someone else making ~~his boyfriend~~ Ian happy for a change, and he hated himself for even thinking that.

The Fairytale was surprisingly crowded for a Wednesday night, but Mickey attributed it to the fact that people were already on vacation for Christmas. The line to get in wasn’t crazy but it definitely wound around the corner. Ian and Nick strode past it without hesitation, walking straight to the bouncer.

“Hey Curtis,” the large Vin Diesel wannabe at the door said in greeting to Ian. “You covering someone’s shift tonight?”  

“Just came out to have some fun with my friends,” Ian explained, pointing at Nick beside him and to Mickey who stood a few steps back.

“Have fun,” the bouncer told him, stepping aside and lifting the velvet rope to admit Ian and his mini entourage in.

The minute Mickey stepped into the club, it was like he had crossed over into a different dimension. The music was the first thing to hit him, the beat so loud that he could feel the vibration of the bass in his chest. There was a thin layer of fog which made the lighting effects and the lasers that shone onto the dance floor even more intense. There were platforms throughout the club adorned with scantily-clad go-go dancers as well as areas for lap dances.

The boys headed straight for the bar, and Mickey followed because he was not in the mood to be left alone, especially not in a setting like this. He was so uncomfortable that he gladly accepted the gay-ass martini Ian ordered for them.

“Curtis?” he asked with a raised eyebrow when Ian was within earshot.

His roommate just shrugged and smiled back at him.

“Whatever,” Mickey muttered, downing the rest of his martini and sliding the glass forward onto the bartop. He motioned for the bartender to get him another one. It was shaping up to be a _fantastic_ evening.

Mickey had never been to a gay club before. He had thought about it once or twice when he’d been really horny, but he couldn’t build up the courage to just do it. The fear of being seen and being found out had always been there. Even now that he didn’t have his father’s fist looming over him, he was still nervous and caught himself constantly checking over his shoulder and making sure no one was looking at him the wrong way.

That was not the case for Ian. The redhead was thriving in this setting. Mickey watched him and his friend as they casually leaned back against the bar and watched the other people in the club. He also didn’t miss how they went through three more drinks each in quick succession. Mickey had never seen Ian drink more than two beers in a single night, and even that was spread out over a couple of hours.

“We should dance,” Nick suggested, looking at the other two for confirmation.

Ian gingerly turned towards Mickey and leaned an elbow onto the bartop beside him. He looked Mickey up and down, eyes lingering on his dress shirt much longer than necessary before a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Are you gonna dance with me tonight?” he wondered.

And in that moment, Mickey was tempted to nod. Even though he had no fucking clue how to dance, he wanted to say yes. He missed Ian, and after more than a week without him, the proximity between them was almost too alluring. The music, the alcohol, the atmosphere… everything there was meant to seduce men, to break down their inhibitions and make them more willing to just be who they were.

But Mickey’s fear was too strong, almost debilitating. He was a fucking chicken and he hated himself for it.

He shook his head.

Ian only let his frown linger on his face for a second, but it was enough to break Mickey’s heart.

“Hey Max, gimme another!” Ian called to the bartender. He accepted the martini and took the stick of olives out before tossing the drink back like it was some kind of a race. Once the glass was drained, he dropped the olives back in and headed to the dance floor with Nick trailing behind him.

Ian and Nick spent the next hour and a half dancing together, eagerly accepting shooters from the dancers walking around selling the overpriced shots. In that time, two different fat, old men approached Mickey, but he cracked his knuckles as threateningly as he could until they backed away. Even though he was rooted to his stool at the bar, he had a perfect view of Ian and Nick, both of whom looked like they didn’t have a care in the world. They danced like they were the only two people in the room, and they appeared to be having a blast.

Even though they weren’t exactly dancing _together_ , Mickey could still feel his jealousy growing. That jealousy peaked whenever a man approached Ian and asked him to dance, but Ian turned them down every time. Mickey could take the fucking rollercoaster anymore and closed out his tab with the bartender before walking onto the dance floor and tapping Ian on his shoulder to get his attention.

The grin on Ian’s face when he turned and realized it was Mickey behind him was a mile wide. Ian’s teeth shone bright under the club’s lights. “I knew you wanted to dance,” he said happily, putting his arms around Mickey’s neck and proceeding to grind against him. He leaned forward so that his lips were right beside Mickey’s ear. “And if you’re good, maybe Curtis will give you a lap dance,” he whispered.

Mickey wasn’t an idiot. He could put two and two together, and was more than aware that Ian used to do more than just bartend at the Fairytale. He was completely turned off by Ian’s words the idea of the redhead dancing for the horny men at the club in nothing but skimpy, sequined underwear. He struggled to move away but the younger man’s grip around him was too tight. Ian was completely absorbed in the dance, head thrown back while rutting his crotch against Mickey in time with the music. Mickey got a hand up and placed it on Ian’s chest, fingers spread apart as he used it to push Ian away.

“How fucking drunk are you?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“M’fine,” Ian told him, turning around but keeping their bodies pressed together as he continued to dance against Mickey. He leaned his head back onto Mickey’s shoulder. “We’re jus’ dancin’, Mick. Loosen up. It’s fun. What’s wrong with fun?”

“Nothing unless it involves some fat faggot shoving his hands down your pants,” he spat. All he wanted to do was get out of the club, but it didn’t look like Ian was anywhere close to giving up.

“C’mon, Mick. You know the only hands I want down my pants are yours,” Ian teased, grabbing Mickey’s hand and rubbing it against his jeans in demonstration.

“How’s about we continue this at home before someone here gets the wrong idea and tries to buy you for the night?” He was sure that Ian would be too drunk to notice if any of the skeevy pervs in the place tried to slip him something, and he was horrified by the thought of anyone taking advantage of Ian.

He glanced over at Nick and saw that Ian’s buff friend looked just as intoxicated as Ian was, and figured he probably wouldn’t be any help. He also didn’t miss the way Nick was eyeing him as Ian danced against him.

“Let’s go back to the apartment,” he said again, suddenly feeling even more possessive over Ian. He forced Ian to turn around and look at him. “We can still have fun at home,” he reasoned.

“But home’s so far awayyy,” Ian whined playfully, still smiling at him, still dancing on him. “I wanna have fun _here_ ,” he insisted. Then he leaned forward and tried to kiss Mickey again.

Mickey ducked the kiss and took a forced step back. He looked around at the other men around them, praying to God that no one had seen anything. The only one who seemed to be paying them any attention was Nick, and the blond was frowning.

He looked back at Ian with wild eyes, absolutely furious. “I told you not to try that shit with me. What’d I tell you? I can’t fucking believe this shit. I’m done. Done.”

Ian had the balls to laugh at him. “It’s just a kiss, Mickey. We got nothing to be ashamed of.”

It made him even angrier. “What fucking world do you live in?” he wondered. He couldn’t be there anymore. He’d given it a shot but it had been a huge fucking mistake. “I’m leaving.”

“You can't-” Ian started, trying to stop Mickey from leaving. “You can't. You know I don't want you to-”

Mickey pushed Ian away with enough force to make him stumble backwards a couple of steps and hit the couple dancing behind him. “What did I just say to you? Done is done. What, you think we're boyfriend and girlfriend here? You're nothing but a warm mouth to me.”

He didn’t wait to get a response from Ian. He was done.

The ride home on the L was a red blur. Mickey was used to feeling rage but this was entirely something else. Part of his ire was directed at himself for letting his stupid dick do the thinking. He should never have gone along with Ian and Nick to the club. If Ian wanted to get fucked up and act like a desperate faggot in front of all those people, that was his choice.

Mickey stomped into their apartment and went right to his room. He changed into clothes that didn’t reek of homo and opened the window to smoke a joint. He needed to relax, to breathe. Fireball came over and jumped onto the sill, nudging Mickey’s leg until the brunet gave in and showed him affection.

“What we do in the apartment is our business,” he said to the orange kitten, rubbing the top of its head. The cat let out a low, contented purr, which Mickey took as his agreement. “What the hell was he thinking?”

Mickey took another puff of the joint and closed his eyes as he blew the smoke out. He thought about the night’s events: the way Ian had only had eyes for him, despite the _many_ advances from the other men there; the way Nick had been so obviously jealous of Mickey; the way Ian hadn’t cared about who else saw them, but had just wanted to _be_ with him; the way Ian’s body had fit so perfectly against him, skin so warm against his wherever they touched.

And what had Mickey done? He’d deliberately said words to hurt Ian, to make him think he meant nothing to Mickey, which was obviously not true. Mickey had left him there, crushed, knowing Ian was drunk and not able to take care of himself.

He looked at his phone and noted that it was still early. If he left now he could get to the club in time to catch Ian, to make sure nothing bad happened. He could tell him he was sorry, that he regretted saying what he’d said. That he would take his words back if he could.

Mind made up, he tossed what was left of his joint out onto the fire escape and closed the window with effort. Just as he grabbed his jacket, he heard the front door close. He heard Ian shuffle down the hall and into his bedroom.

Mickey hesitated before leaving his room. If Ian was pissed at him, maybe it wasn’t the best time to talk. But the longer he waited, the more he knew he had to go apologize and make things right. He’d wasted too much time already, not just since leaving the club but since pretending he didn’t have feelings for Ian.

Ian was right: things between them had definitely changed. Mickey had had nothing else to do during their eight day dry spell than to think about his feelings. He’d been scared of what he felt because he’d never felt it before, but he also knew that it was time for him to stop being a pussy and to man up.

He opened the door and turned right to walk down the hall to Ian’s room. The door was open halfway and he could make out Ian moving, but it was too dark to see exactly what he was doing, but as Mickey approached the room, it became clear.

Ian had Nick pinned down over the edge of the bed, boxers pulled down roughly, giving him just enough access to the bigger man’s ass. Mickey watched, frozen in place, as Ian fucked the blond as hard as he usually fucked Mickey, the sound of the headboard banging against the wall mixing with Nick’s heavy grunts.

He felt like he was dreaming, having the fucking worst nightmare of his life. His knees felt weak and he reached a hand out to grab the door, to keep himself from falling. The door creaked as it swung further open, causing Ian to turn his head and notice Mickey. He continued fucking Nick even though he had been seen, keeping his eyes locked with Mickey’s the entire time.

The air around Mickey started pushing in until his vision was spotty and the only sound he heard was a long tone, like what you hear after you’ve been too close to an explosion. He blinked and gasped for air, trying to clear his head. He somehow made it to his room, slammed the door and slid down against it until he was on the ground, and it was only then that he was able to breathe again. He pressed his hands to his eyes to stop the flow of tears and choked out a “fuck”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry. i'm really sorry... but anyone who knows me should know i can't NOT write angst! and also ian/omc was in the tags from the start...


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was the biggest mistake Ian had ever made, but he didn’t even remember it.

_It was the biggest mistake Ian had ever made, but he didn’t even remember it._

Ian was startled awake by the sound of his phone ringing. He patted at his side table in search of the source of the God-awful sound to no avail. The phone eventually stopped ringing and he settled back into his pillow, sinking face-first into the softness. His relief was short-lived; the phone began ringing again and Ian was forced to open his eyes to look for his jeans. He groaned at the pain from the light but leaned over the side of the bed until his fingers gripped the edge of his pant leg. He dragged it closer until he could reach into the pocket and open the small metal phone to end its incessant ringing.

“Ugh... what?” he grunted, lying back and shutting his eyes again. Everything hurt, everywhere.

“Ian? How are you still asleep?” came Debbie’s voice from the other end.

Ian ran a hand down his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What d’you want, Debs?” He knew he was being a rude shit but he couldn’t be bothered not to be, all of his energy going to _not_ throwing up.

“Whatever. I’m just calling to warn you that we’re having more people over tonight than we originally expected.” He was still asleep, and only half of what his sister was saying made any sense to him.

“What?” He could hear his pulse beating in his head, the pounding in time with his heartbeat.

“You were gonna bring the beer on your way over today, right? You should bring a lot more. And maybe some vodka… You know how Jimmy’s mom is…”

Ian still didn’t get what she was going on about. “Jimmy’s mom?” he asked, like an idiot.

Debbie sighed in frustration, clearly losing patience with him. “Fiona insisted he invite his parents to dinner, even if they haven’t spoken since their divorce. She says ‘Christmas is a time for family’ or whatever but I think it’s bull. Anyway, see ya later.”

She hung up and Ian was left trying to figure out what the hell he’d just been ordered to do by his baby sister who clearly wasn’t such a baby anymore. He slowly digested her words: people coming over, alcohol, dinner, Christmas… until it clicked in his head that it was Christmas Eve.

But even if he hadn’t figured it out in that moment, it wouldn’t have mattered, because not even two seconds after he made the connection, the words “Merry Christmas” carried over from beside him in the bed.

Ian sat up with a start and took in the fact that his best friend was sleeping in his bed, then noted ‒ with increased shock ‒ that they were both naked.

“N- Nick?” he stuttered.

The blond gave him a small smile. “In the flesh,” he answered, smile widening.

“Uh… what...? Did we…?” Ian flashed his eyes down towards Nick’s junk and then looked back at his face, eyes wide.

Nick’s smile faltered. “Oh…” he said, voice low. “You don’t remember?”

Ian shook his head and stopped immediately and cringed when the motion made the pounding in his head even worse.

“I mean, we both drank a _lot_ last night, but I didn’t know you were that wasted…”

Ian didn't typically drink that much, especially not since starting his meds. The previous night had been a special occasion of sorts.

“So we…” he repeated carefully, motioning between them with one hand.

“Yeah…” Nick confirmed. “A few times,” he added, but the joy that had been there when he’d woken up had quite clearly faded.

Ian groaned and covered his face with his arm, forehead falling into the crook of his elbow. “Fuck.”

“Look, this… this doesn’t have to mean anything,” Nick told him. Ian heard him shuffle around and when he looked up at his friend, he already had his boxers on. “I knew you were upset about Mickey dumping you and I shouldn’t have let things go so far. I didn’t know how fucked up you were. I just…” he stopped and looked at Ian with sad eyes, with the same expression he’d had on his face every time he’d made a move on Ian in high school and had been turned down.

“I’m sorry,” Ian told him, voice thick with regret. “I…” He remembered the club. He remembered Mickey getting jealous. He remembered trying to kiss him… and he remembered the horrible moments that followed. It was only afterwards that things got fuzzy. He had absolutely no memory of anything _after_ Mickey left.

“No, you don’t have to apologize,” Nick said, bending down to pick up his shirt. “We can just pretend it didn’t happen. It’s not a big deal…”

“Nick…”

“It’s fine, bro. Don’t worry about it.” He pulled his pants on and quickly buckled his belt.

He began to leave but Ian couldn’t let him leave like that. “Hey, wait,” he called, forcing himself to get up out of bed through the sludge that was his brain and form a coherent thought. “Why don’t you come by for dinner tonight? I know Debs and Carl will be thrilled to see you again.” They hadn’t seen him since summer. “That is… if you don’t mind dealing with my family’s drama.”

“What, you don’t think Liam will be happy to see me?” Nick teased. “I’m sure it’ll be better than anything my mom has planned. You remember how she threw that knife at my sister’s boyfriend because he didn’t like her cooking?”

They both laughed. “How can I forget?” Ian said. He’d been sitting right beside the guy when the silver utensil had come barreling through the air.

“Um…” Nick hesitated. “Are you sure you want me there?”

“Of course,” Ian said, reaching out to give him a hug. He buried his face against Nick’s shoulder. “I missed you.”

Nick clapped him on the back. “Don’t worry, I’ll add the naked hug to the ‘this-never-happened’ list.”

At that, Ian let go and back away from Nick, holding his junk in his hands in shame. “Oh God…”

He heard Nick’s laughter echo through the hall and could even hear it coming from the living room until the click of the main door being pulled shut finally cut it off. The sound gave Ian hope that maybe he hadn’t completely fucked up their friendship.

With Nick gone, Ian dreaded the thought of being in the apartment alone with Mickey, particularly because he had a feeling he’d be given the silent treatment for another week. He found his boxers and headed to the kitchen to get some Advil. He was halfway down the hallway when he noticed Mickey’s door ajar, which was weird because Mickey was the kind of person who _always_ kept his door closed.

Ian knocked on the door lightly before deciding to just go in. It took him a minute to comprehend what he was seeing ‒ or rather, what he wasn’t seeing. The room was completely empty, save for the bed frame, the bare mattress and the old desk. All of Mickey’s belongings were gone. Ian felt dizzy. He ran to the small closet and whipped it open. It was also empty.

Ian ran back to his bedroom and hit the speed dial for Mickey’s cell. There was a little tone and then an automated voice came on: _“The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Goodbye.”_ He pounded on the end button to many times and tried again. He held the phone to his ear with shaking hands as the same message played again. It didn’t change on the third or fourth tries, either.

Ian’s knees felt weak. He sank down onto the edge of the bed and let the phone slide onto the sheets beside him. Could it really have happened? Could Mickey have moved out? He hadn’t even asked for his security deposit back. How could he disappear without a word?

Mickey had said they were done… but the gravity of his words hadn’t quite hit Ian until that moment.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If Ian hadn’t been surrounded by his family and friends, he wouldn’t have survived.

_If Ian hadn’t been surrounded by his family and friends, he wouldn’t have survived._

The fact that the fight, their break-up and Mickey’s ultimate departure had taken place during the holidays was probably the one thing that saved Ian. If something like that had happened to him before he’d been diagnosed and gotten put on the right meds, he couldn’t have even imagined the state he would have been in.

He had been allowed to mope for all of five minutes before Lip had called to see why he was running late. They still had to go shopping and buy presents for everyone, in addition to getting the alcohol and picking up Amanda before heading over to the Gallagher house for their family dinner. His brother had come by and had forced him to get dressed without even giving Ian a chance to explain what had happened, and then the morning had gone by so quickly that Ian hadn’t had time to fall apart.

The Gallagher house had been filled to the brim with people by the time Ian, Lip and his girlfriend had gotten there. On top of his family and their respective significant others, Nick had already arrived, Jimmy’s parents had come, Kev and V plus all three of their kids had been there with V’s mom, Carol, in tow and even Frank had beaten them there, already passed out on the armchair in the living room when Ian had walked in. Sheila had been busy finishing up with cooking their first fancy, gourmet Christmas Eve meal while Sammy showed Chuckie how to set the table properly.

At one point, Ian had found a lull in the evening’s festivities and had stepped out through the back door in the kitchen to call Mandy. She had told him that Mickey hadn’t moved back home and that she didn’t know where he was, but Ian could tell that she was lying. He’d known better than to force her to betray her own brother and he certainly hadn’t wanted to lose her friendship as well, so he’d let it slide, accepting her lies, at least for the time being.

Later on that evening, Fiona had pestered both Ian and Lip about their plans for the winter break. Amanda had bragged to their whole family about Lip’s new internship, but Ian had admitted that he hadn’t made any plans. Nick had chosen that moment to defend his friend from the disappointed looks his sister was throwing his way, telling Fiona that his only plans for the entire month of January were to make sure he spent as much time as possible relaxing and hanging out with Ian before he had to return to the real world of responsibility and the demands of college.

The rest of the night had gone smoothly until Ned had asked Ian how he liked the apartment. Jimmy’s mom had overheard and, even though things with Ned had been over for a _long_ time, she had still been furious when reminded of her ex-husband’s extramarital activities. She had ended up chasing Ned around the dining room table with a bottle of vodka in one hand and her high heeled shoe in the other. All in all, it hadn’t been the most eventful meal in Gallagher holiday history, but it had definitely been up there on the list.

Over the course of the next month, Ian had continued hanging on, taking things one day at a time. He’d thrown himself into work, putting in extra shifts at the club whenever possible. He had been miserable, but Lip had made sure he’d continued taking his pills every morning and every night, right on schedule. Nick had kept his word and had spent all of his free time with Ian during the break, and he had made more of an effort to keep in touch with Ian once he’d gone back to West Point. Mandy had done her part by not cutting Ian off like her brother had, even though she’d held fast to her statement that she didn’t know where Mickey was.

Ian hadn’t gone a single day without missing Mickey. Everything around him had seemed to remind him of the older man. Hanging out with Mandy had become increasingly difficult since he would see Mickey’s face every time he looked at her. He had thought of Mickey every time he’d seen a kid eating a jello cup or had passed by a can of Pringles in the chips aisle at the grocery store. He had even had to start ordering dinner from different take-out restaurants because he’d felt so pathetic every time he ordered only half of their usual.

One month had turned into two and Ian had had to face the reality of the situation: Mickey had left, his security deposit had been depleted, and Ian needed to figure out how to pay his rent. He’d put another classified ad in the paper and had found a new roommate. George was a complete slob, a musician who liked to write most of his songs at night, but he paid his rent on time and that was all Ian had needed.

“I brought dinner,” Lip said, holding the bag up as evidence so that Ian could see it. He smiled and slid the chain lock open before letting his brother in.

“Don’t you have better things to be doing on a Saturday night than wasting your time here?” Ian wondered.

“Nonsense. What could be more fun than hanging out with you?” Lip teased. He walked to the table and put the bag down while Ian closed the door behind him. “Plates?” Lip asked.

“You know full-well where I keep the plates,” Ian sighed but opened the cabinet to take out two plates anyway.

“Yeah but I brought the food so it’s the least you can do,” Lip answered with a grin. They opened the containers of Italian food and split them onto their respective plates. Lip moaned with pleasure as he ate his penne. “Oh my God this is delicious. _How_ can you not order from here all the time?”

Ian looked at the logo on the napkin he was using and frowned. “Mario’s was one of Mickey’s favorites,” he said, swallowing down a bite of his chicken parmesan. Ian knew that Lip had had enough of his complaining so he kept his mouth shut and shrugged.

“Not this again,” Lip groaned. “Ian, my brother, it’s been almost three months. How are you not over him? You need to move on… You need to get out there and fuck someone new, okay?” Lip pointed at him with his fork and added, “and someone in his early twenties, not some old dude like Kash or Ned.”

“Fuck you,” Ian responded, laughing. Lip loved to bring up his past tendency to go for older men, which Ian hadn’t done in quite some time.

“Alright, seriously, go into a gay bar, ‒ maybe one you _don’t_ work at ‒ make your need known, and have at it.”

“It’s not that easy,” he argued. Ian _had_ tried to move on… he really had. He’d even started dating again, even though they had all just been meaningless hook-ups.

“What happened to Tyler?”

Ian hadn’t thought about Tyler in almost a month. “That blind date you set me up on for Valentine’s Day? Are you kidding me?”

“No. What was wrong with him? Amanda said she met him through her sorority’s brother fraternity and just knew you two would hit it off.”

“Is that really the kinda guy you see me with? Some drunken frat-guy? He spent the first hour of our date talking about the fucked up shit they were making their pledges do, and the next hour proving that he could belch the alphabet.” Ian shuddered at the memory and was glad the guy hadn’t tried calling him again.

“Yeah but didn’t Mickey like to drink?”

Ian glared at his brother until Lip lifted his hands in surrender. “All I’m saying is that you’re never gonna meet anyone new if you’re still hung up on Mickey Milkovich.”

Lip’s words were true but that didn’t make it any easier for Ian to accept them. He hadn’t felt a connection with any of the other guys he’d met. In fact, he’d never felt that same connection with anyone, not before Mickey nor after him.

“It’s not the same. None of them are like him.”

“Dude, that’s a _good_ thing. Don’t be an idiot and get pulled into another situation where you’re more invested than the other guy is. You and Mickey didn’t even have a real relationship. You were roommates who fucked. It clearly didn’t mean anything to him if he was willing to leave so easily.”

“That’s not true! He-”

“He what? He admitted to you how he felt about you? He showed you he cared?”

“Shut up…” Ian muttered, but Lip didn’t relent.

“He was okay going out in public with you?” Lip shook his head when he saw the offended look on Ian’s face. “You’re making it into this epic relationship when all it was was a few months of sex.”

“Shut up!” Ian yelled, louder this time. “You don’t know anything about it! He _did_ show me that he cared. Maybe not with his words, but with his actions. I know how he felt about me and that’s all that matters, so if you want to be a dick about it then you can just take your food and shove it up your ass.”

Lip sat back in his chair and frowned at Ian but he finally dropped it. He may have been trying to get Ian to move on, but their conversation had the opposite effect on Ian. Being forced to think about Mickey so much made Ian miss him even more. He missed Mickey’s smell and the feel of his skin and the way Mickey’s hair constantly fell into his eyes and had to be brushed back behind his ear again. He missed the beautiful blue oceans of Mickey’s eyes and the way Mickey shivered under his touch and the way he tried not to moan whenever Ian was inside him but couldn’t help it. He missed how Mickey would sometimes let him win at video games because he wanted an excuse to have dinner with him and how he had started calling him “Ian” instead of “Gallagher”.

Lip didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. They hadn’t just been roommates who fucked. They had been _so_ much more. Ian didn’t care how things had ended or that Mickey had cut him out of his life so easily. He just knew he was going to do everything in his power to find Mickey and get him back.  
He ushered his brother out of the apartment with a hurried thanks for dinner and immediately sent a text to Mandy, begging her to call him when she finished work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for any grammar mistakes or whatnot. it hasn't been beta'd. i kind of rushed this chapter because i didn't want to leave you guys hanging without any hope after my last update... which i admit was a bit harsh... but yeah, only 2 chapters to go! hopefully both will be posted at some point tomorrow.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mandy was a lot more perceptive than anyone gave her credit for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's a little late but i promised i would post it by tonight, so here you go! (big thank you to katie for beta'ing the chapter for me on such short notice!)

_Mandy was a lot more perceptive than anyone gave her credit for._

Mandy had gotten home from work on Saturday night and had called Ian, just like he’d asked her to. He’d sounded so upset but, unlike the previous times he’d called her asking for information on Mickey, she could hear the determination in his voice. He’d told her he didn’t care what Mickey had said, that he _needed_ to get back in touch with “his friend” no matter what, and that he wouldn’t accept no for an answer any longer. She’d been tempted to tell him the truth, but she’d made a promise to her brother...

The first thing she’d done when she’d gotten off the phone with Ian was go over to Mickey’s new place. She had planned to finally confront him, something she had never considered doing in the past. She’d already had the conversation planned out in her head for weeks and had even been ready to call him a fucking pussy for not facing Ian, except Mickey hadn’t been home. So instead of waiting for him and talking things out, she had used her spare key and had gone in anyway. She had taken Fireball into her arms and had left the apartment quietly, making sure to leave the window wide open and to lock the door behind her.

That had been three days ago, and in that time, she had convinced her brother to put an ad for his “missing” cat in the paper. She had taken care of the little cat and had formed her master plan, because if the boys were too stupid to sort their own shit out, she would have to do it for them.

Mandy found Fireball asleep under her bed and put him into her backpack, leaving the top zipper open so that the little guy could still breathe. She normally wouldn’t give a shit about the rules of public transit, but it was still pretty cold out and she had to go all the way downtown, so on the off chance that someone saw her with a cat on the L and decided to kick her off, she had to be careful.

When she thought back to the first day she’d met Ian, Mandy remembered a nervous, almost sad person. Ian had given her the impression that he wasn’t completely comfortable with himself, and even though she had outed him right off the bat, she’d still sensed that there was more to him that just what she could see on the surface. _Something_ had been keeping him from being truly happy.

As time had gone by and she had gotten to know him better, she’d seen him start to open up to her. He had mentioned some of his old relationships and had told her how messed up he’d been after they had ended, something Mandy could definitely understand. She had never been lucky in love either, constantly going from one guy to the next in an endless search for the "right" one. Ian had even told her about his bipolar disorder, which she hadn't expected nor suspected. Something about Ian just seemed to pull her closer all the time, and she’d known early on that they would be good friends.

She had picked up on the fact that Mickey didn’t want to be friends with his roommate, but no matter how much she had pushed him for an explanation about the strange distance he kept from Ian, her brother hadn’t given any. Despite Mickey’s protests, Mandy had just known that Ian was a good person, and had encouraged ‒ okay, manipulated ‒ her brother to into spending time with him. Mickey had needed a friend after moving out – someone who _wasn’t_ connected with their family – and Ian had been right there, more than willing and very able to fill that role. Of course, that had been before she'd known about Ian being interested in her brother for _other_ reasons...

Mandy stood on the L platform and tightened her jacket around her waist. Winter was slowly on its way out the door, but it was taking its sweet-ass time leaving. They didn’t call Chicago the windy city for no reason; the wind whipped at Mandy from every direction and she regretted not taking her hat and scarf with her when she left the house. The train rattled past her and she boarded the car that stopped closest to her on the platform. She sat down in one of the train’s many empty seats and slid the backpack off her shoulder, placing it onto her lap.

Fireball made a soft purring sound when she peeked in through the bag’s opening to make sure he was alright. He licked at her fingers with his scratchy tongue and she stifled a giggle. She could just make out his orange fur in the little bit of light that shone into the bag, the exact color of Ian’s hair. No wonder Mickey had gotten so attached to the thing... She thought back to the night she and Mickey had rescued the kitten from his fire escape. If she had to pin it down, that whole night had been the moment when the dynamic between Ian and her brother had really changed.

Mandy remembered being ridiculously bored that night and she had somehow roped Ian into entertaining her while she waited for Mickey to get back. They had started watching a movie together – some stupid horror movie she had picked because her choices had been so limited – and when her brother had walked in, looking absolutely wrecked, not to mention completely drenched, the gory film had distracted him enough to make him sit down and watch it with them. She remembered the way Ian’s whole mood had changed, how he had been smiling the entire time, even through Mickey’s incessant complaints which had driven her crazy. But then Mandy had looked over to Mickey and had seen her brother’s eyes flicking tensely to the spot where his thigh was touching Ian’s… and instead of seeing a man with anger and disgust on his face as she’d expected, she’d seen a nervous looking boy anxiously biting his lower lip. That had been her first clue. The look on Mickey’s face when Mandy had told him the kitten looked just like Ian had been the second.

But if those signs hadn’t been enough, the change in both their moods after they had started hanging out would have been a dead giveaway. Both of them were always laughing. She had never seen her brother smile and talk so much. It had been clear that Ian brought out the best in Mickey.

She would sometimes go to the apartment on her days off from work to watch movies or play video games with them and would feel like a third wheel whenever one of them brought up some kind of inside joke she wasn’t in on. In the beginning she had toyed with the idea of their relationship just being a very good friendship, because the alternative ‒ her brother, Mickey _Milkovich,_ being _gay_ ‒ seemed impossible, but then she’d seen that look in Mickey’s eyes. She’d noticed it more than just a few times, always when he hadn’t known she was watching him. Mickey had looked at Ian with admiration and something else… love, but not the same kind of love she remembered him showing their mom. No, it had been much more intimate than that. Thus, Mandy had decided that Ian was good for her brother. He’d made him a better person, not the asshole their dad had raised him to be, but a decent human being.

Mandy exited the L at Ian’s stop and walked the few blocks to his apartment building. She waited inconspicuously for someone to leave and then slipped in casually through the door before it closed. The building was fancy, but not so fancy that it had a doorman or anything like that. She got into the elevator and hit the button for the sixth floor, then waited patiently as the little screen showed the red numbers going up.

She got off on Ian’s floor and walked down to his apartment. She pressed the little doorbell on the doorframe and waited. And waited. It was eight o’clock on a freaking Wednesday night. Where the hell could Ian be? She rang the bell again and huffed out in annoyance before she sat Indian-style on the carpet and leaned back against the wall of the hallway. She would just have to wait it out.

Mandy thought about the last time she had been to the apartment. It was the night Mickey had gloomily called her over to help him move out. In the week leading up to that night, Mandy had felt things change between her brother and Ian, particularly because Mickey had been constantly grumpy again. She’d noticed that they hadn’t been talking, but had figured it was just a hiccup in their relationship. She’d been confused but had come over without asking any questions… and when she’d looked down the hallway, through Ian’s open bedroom door, and had seen him passed out on his bed next to some naked guy, she had gotten all the answers she’d needed. And like a good sister, she had kept her mouth shut and had helped him move all his shit out.

The first time Ian had called her, it had been easy to lie. The jerk had hurt her brother. Cheated on him. Broken his heart. Of course she wasn’t going to help him find Mickey. But Ian had been a persistently good friend. He’d called her the following morning to wish her a Merry Christmas and again on New Year’s Day. He had kept right on calling her and had somehow convinced her to hang out, even though her opinion of him at the time had been at an all-time low. They’d gone for pizza and Ian had confided in her about what had happened with Nick. He’d told her he’d gotten shitfaced after a fight with Mickey where Mickey had been the one to say their “friendship” was over, and didn’t even remember hooking up with his best friend. Of course, he hadn’t let on anything about the true nature of his relationship with Mickey, but Mandy wasn’t an idiot.

She had felt bad then, for both of them, because it had become clear that Mickey had been the one to push Ian away, probably out of fear. She couldn’t imagine how difficult coming out and being openly gay would be for him, especially considering their family and the neighborhood they were from. She’d comforted Ian as best as she could, but she still wouldn’t betray her brother. She’d even suffered through three months of seeing both of them moping about without breaking her resolve. That was, of course, until the conversation she’d had with Ian over the weekend.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, bringing her back to the present. Ian walked through and smiled when he saw her sitting in front of his apartment, looking genuinely happy to see her. It wasn’t as big as the smile he reserved for Mickey though. He held a hand out to help her up but she got up on her own, moving carefully so as not to jostle the backpack.

“Hey Mands,” he greeted her, then immediately sneezed. He rubbed his nose and walked past her to the door to unlock it. “What’re you doin’ here?” he asked over his shoulder.

There was no use wasting time with small talk so she decided to get right to the point. She walked into his living room but forewent taking a seat, instead turning to face him before she started. “Look, I promised him I wouldn’t tell you where he was, and I’m not gonna break that promise, but I wasn’t lying when I said he didn’t move back home.” Even though their dad was gone, Mickey had refused to move back into the house and she kind of understood his reasons. He’d had a taste of freedom to be who he was and it would be hard to go back to the house that had weighed him down for his whole life.

“So… what does that mean…?”

“It means I can’t deny that he was better off with you in his life and I’m tired of seeing both of you miserable. Here,” she said, shoving the backpack into his arms.

“What’s this?”

Ian was clearly slow up the uptake. She opened the zipper further and pulled Fireball out. Ian let out two sneezes in quick succession before taking a step back and letting the bag fall to the ground, luckily with the cat still in Mandy’s arms.

“Mandy, I’m allergic to cats,” he said, looking around desperately for some kind of escape route.

“No shit, Sherlock. Why do you think Mickey kept him a secret?” she said with a small laugh. It was just too perfect to not enjoy the moment.

Ian’s brows knit together as he stared at the cat. “This is Mickey’s… pet?”

“Yep,” she nodded, and held him out like he was Simba, being presented to the rest of the animals in the Pride Lands. “Ian, meet Fireball,” she announced.

Ian choked out a nervous laugh and took another step back. Mandy moved closer until the cat was close enough to make Ian sneeze again. He looked up at her with already watery eyes. “Are you serious?”

“We found him on the fire escape and Mickey rescued him. Nursed him back to health and shit,” Mandy explained.

“So what’s he doing here…?”

Mandy cradled Fireball against her chest and reached behind her with one hand to pull out a folded newspaper from her back pocket. She handed it to Ian and watched as the redhead slowly unfolded the page.

Ian’s eyes widened the longer he read the paper. “Mandy… did you _steal_ Mickey’s cat?”

“ _No_. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Mickey clearly left the window open at his new place because he’s a stupid piece of shit and the cat ran away. He must have remembered where he used to live and somehow found his way back to his old apartment, where you found him,” she said, stating the series of events like facts. “On the fire escape, just like the first time,” she added.

“So what the hell am I supposed to do with him?” Ian wondered.

“Hmm, I don’t know... If I found a cat that looked exactly like the one in this ad, I’d probably call the number and try to get my reward… but then again, that’s just me. Do whatever you want.”

Fireball squirmed in her arms so she put the cat down onto the floor and walked towards the door. “Oh, but I’d probably get someone else to call and set up a meeting, just in case he recognizes my voice or something,” she suggested.

Mandy was exhausted and all she wanted to do was go back home. Taking care of an energetic kitten was a lot more difficult than she had expected it to be, and the little guy had worn her out over the last three days. Just as she was about to walk out, Ian called out one final question to her. “Why are you helping me now?”

She turned around and sighed, mulling over her words before opening her mouth to reply. “Because you’re the first person my brother has ever loved... and because he’s too stubborn to admit when he’s made a mistake.”

Ian’s jaw hung open with the realization that she’d known about them all along. Mandy felt satisfied with herself. It served them right for always assuming she was clueless. She left the apartment with a grin, muttering something about stupid boys needing all the help they could get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> only one chapter to go... i'm so nervous, lol. your comments give me life so please continue leaving them...! i'll post the ending either tomorrow night or thursday, latest. (no choice since we're going down to NYC on friday!)


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To say that Ian was excited about seeing Mickey again would have been the biggest understatement of the century.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for being so patient with me. it wasn't easy to finish this with everything going on in my life, but here it is, 10 days later than i promised. i hope it doesn't disappoint...
> 
> also thanks again to jinko, tami and tania for pushing me and helping me get it all written, and to katie for being such a helpful beta, even on short notice!

_To say that Ian was excited about seeing Mickey again would have been the biggest understatement of the century._

If Ian was being honest, he was tempted to forget about the cat altogether and just call the number Mickey had put in the classified ad. He thought about it a few times, but always came to the same conclusion: there would be nothing stopping Mickey from hanging up and changing his number the minute he heard Ian’s voice. So instead, he followed Mandy’s advice and asked his new roommate for a favor.

“Hi, yeah, is this the guy who put the ad for the missing cat in the paper?” George said into his cell phone. He nodded slightly to Ian to let him know the answer to his question had been yes.

Ian pressed his lips together to calm himself down. Mickey was _right_ on the other end of the line and it was taking all of his strength not to grab the phone out of his roommate’s hand. He moved his hands underneath him, sitting on them for good measure.

“Yeah man, I think I found him,” George continued. “He looks just like the cat in the picture. Same weird blue-green eyes and everything.” He raised the rolled up newspaper page into the air and swatted at Ian’s knee. The redhead hadn’t realized he’d been bouncing his leg to the point of shaking the furniture around him.

“Yeah, I can meet you today. Where?”

Ian’s heart felt like it had just stopped beating.

“Half an hour? No problem.”

George clicked his phone off and the sound of it rang in the silence of the room. Ian was afraid to even take a breath, let alone ask for a recap of the conversation. He stared intently at his new roommate’s face for any clues and felt almost annoyed when all George did was shrug.

“He said he’ll be waiting outside of Sip. You know where it is?”

Ian nodded eagerly.

“Good. I’m going back to bed,” George told him. He stood to return to his room and, as he did so, a handful of cookie crumbs fell onto the floor around him. Ian cringed at the mess but managed to hold his comment in; his roommate had just done him a huge favor, after all.

“Thanks, man,” he called to him, just before hearing the door shut.

Okay, so he had half an hour. That was doable... He could definitely manage that…

“Are _you_ ready to see him again?” Ian asked the cat who was now tentatively sniffing the crumbs on the floor where George had been sitting. Fireball didn’t respond, of course, but he did cock his head to the side before sticking his little tongue out and picking up one of the cookie pieces.

Ian sighed and went to the kitchen to take some more Claritin ‒ his fifth since Mandy had dropped the cat off the previous day. His head felt foggy but at least he wasn’t tearing up or sneezing every two minutes. He went to his room to find the backpack and somehow got the cat into it.

He grabbed his jacket and slung the bag over his shoulder before leaving the apartment. The walk to the coffee shop was the longest ten minutes of Ian’s life. He kept trying to plan out what he would say to Mickey, but there were too many variables. Even though Ian felt like he had Mickey figured out for the most part, he knew he could be unpredictable, and that terrified Ian. He couldn’t remove the fear from the pit of his stomach that Mickey would take one look at him and leave, without giving him a chance to even talk.

It was chilly out so Ian pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and swung the backpack forward, using his coat to hold the bag closer to his chest. He felt Fireball stir and hoped the cat would be okay for a little while longer until they got inside.

Sip was actually one of Ian’s favorite cafés in the neighborhood, and he wondered why he hadn’t run into Mickey there before. Could his former roommate have been going there when he was sure Ian would be busy? Part of him was saddened by the thought but another was surprisedthat Mickey would even know and remember his schedule. It almost made him feel important, in a way.

He rounded the last corner and walked down Grand until he saw the coffee house on his right. It may not have looked like much from the outside, but it was a really chill, eclectic place on the inside, full of mismatched furniture and decorated with local art. He took his hood off and checked the time on his phone, realizing he was fifteen minutes early. He hadn’t even noticed it in his eagerness to get there. He walked over to the counter and ordered himself some coffee. After a bit of deliberation, he ordered one for Mickey as well. (Black, just how he knew Mickey liked it.)

He picked a table in the corner of the store and sat with his back to the wall so that he would have a straight line of sight to the door, carefully placing the backpack on the bench beside him. He placed his drink in front of him and put Mickey’s on the other end of the table. Then all he could do was sit and wait…

...and wait…

...and _wait_.

After another half hour had passed, Ian started getting worried. What if Mandy had been wrong and Mickey didn’t care about the cat as much as she had implied? Or what if he had already seen Ian and had turned back? His excitement at the prospect of finally seeing Mickey again quickly evaporated until Ian was left with nothing but a deep-rooted feeling of anxiety and self-doubt. He tried to ignore the fear, slowly sipping at his drink and absentmindedly stroking the top of Fireball’s head through the backpack’s open zipper.

His head automatically snapped up to look at the door each and every time the little bell announced the arrival of a new customer. It reminded him of when he used to work at the Kash and Grab, back when he’d been a deluded teenager and had thought he was in _love_ with his boss. He looked back on it now with a combination of embarrassment and regret at what a delusional, stupid kid he’d been, because what he’d felt with Kash had been _nothing_ compared to what he’d felt with Mickey. It was something completely new to him, the feeling of being so perfectly content and genuinely _happy_ in Mickey’s presence. Mickey was his home, his haven, the light in his dark world and the only one who accepted him for who he really was without any judgment, bipolar or not. It had physically hurt him to be away from Mickey for this long, and he prayed that the older man would give him a chance to explain it to him, to get out everything he’d been holding in for the last three months.

He finished drinking his coffee and stared at mug he’d ordered for Mickey. It was undoubtedly cold by now, and he could see the little vibrations ripple over the top of the dark brown drink each time Fireball moved in the bag beside him. The bell atop the door rang again and Ian whipped his attention from the dark coffee to the door.

Ian held his breath as Mickey stepped into the coffee house, letting the door close behind him. He watched him pull off his beanie with one hand, using the other to smooth out his unruly hair underneath it. He stuffed the hat into his jacket pocket before he looked around the shop, presumably scanning the place for a guy sitting alone with a cat.

Ian exhaled as Mickey turned his head the other way again, searching the back of the store and the various empty sofas. Ian figured he must not have seen him, so he decided to stand up and get Mickey’s attention. It was unnecessary; the moment Ian shifted, Mickey’s eyes darted to him and widened in shock. Ian froze, physically unable to do anything else but sit still until he knew what Mickey’s reaction to seeing him would be. In that long moment, Ian could feel a sense of purpose return to him, a feeling that had been missing in him since Christmas.

The original surprise on Mickey’s face quickly melted away, his lips twisting into a harsh scowl. He rolled his eyes and huffed out something Ian was too far to hear before he made a beeline to the front door, whipping it open on his way to get out of the building as quickly as possible. Ian sat for another moment, still stunned, while the chiming of the bell’s ironically cheery ring faded away, swallowed away by the natural chatter of the other people in the coffee house.

Ian’s worst fear had come to pass: Mickey had quite literally been disgusted by the sight of him, and had left the moment he’d seen him. He felt like he’d made a huge mistake. He’d been an idiot for even thinking Mandy’s plan would work... for getting his hopes up… because all he felt now was the same sense of loss and heartache all over again.

He was disoriented. He felt like he was a ship, lost at sea in a fucking storm, without a compass... and his lighthouse, Mickey, the force that had been stabilizing him, had turned off its beacon yet again, with a finality that Ian couldn’t ignore or reason his way out of. The pressure in his head was getting stronger, his vision blurring and his mind swimming with all the feelings he’d pushed away since Christmas: he imagined everything; Mickey didn’t love him ‒ never had, never would; his _crazy_ mind had made it all up; he wasn’t worthy of being loved ‒ not by Mickey, not by anyone… so he didn’t notice when the bell rang again, or when Mickey’s tattooed fingers reached forward and grabbed the backpack out of his lap. He didn’t realize any of it was happening until Mickey’s cold voice cut through the chaos in his own mind.

“You know what? Fuck this shit. Gimme my fucking cat,” the brunet said as he pulled the black backpack towards him. He opened the zipper more and Fireball stood on his hind legs, peeked his head out of the widened opening, using his tiny, orange paws to balance himself against the canvas. His instant recognition of Mickey was irrefutable, emphasized by Fireball’s nuzzle against Mickey’s hand.

“Kidnapping a kitten? Didn’t think you were the type to break the law for pussy,” Mickey said to Ian in disgust, shaking his head as he stepped away and distanced himself from him.

“What?” Ian asked, his brain still not having caught up to what had just happened. Mickey began walking out and Ian immediately stood, accidentally pushing the table forward a foot or so with his eagerness to not let Mickey leave again. The sound of the metal legs dragging on the tiles made the customers in their immediate area turn to look at the source of the commotion. It also made Mickey turn.

“I didn’t steal it!” Ian called to him, ignoring the nosy stares of the people around him. “I swear!” He maneuvered his way out from between the small tables and various chairs until he was only a couple of feet away from Mickey. “I didn’t even know you had a cat, although the random allergies in Fall and Winter _do_ make more sense now,” he added.

Mickey looked at him like he was waiting for more of an explanation, so Ian continued, “He must have remembered his old house or something and come back to it. You know, like a pigeon…” Ian said, attempting to relay the story Mandy had fed him, and failing miserably. It was obvious that Mickey didn’t buy a word of it.

“Yeah, whatever,” Mickey muttered. He zipped the bag up and slung it over his shoulder, then put his beanie back on and walked out, leaving Ian standing there.

“Fuck,” the redhead muttered, deciding he couldn’t let Mickey go again. He couldn’t give up, not when he was this close to him. He followed Mickey out of the shop as quickly as possible, speeding up to close the distance between them once he got outside. “Mick! Wait, don’t leave again,” he called to him. “I don’t think I’d make it through this time…” he added, knowing the words were true the moment they left his lips.

Something in his tone when he said the last part must have carried through to Mickey, because he could have sworn he saw Mickey’s steps falter for a beat. Or maybe he had imagined it, because when he looked at him again, he was walking away just as quickly as he had been a moment ago. “Should’a thought of that before you cheated on me, asshole!” Mickey called back, not even turning to look at him.

Ian felt his blood turn cold and had to stop following Mickey. _What?_ He had never cheated on Mickey. What the hell was he talking about? It took him a second to get his brain to understand what Mickey was saying, then to tell his body what to do. Ian ran to catch up to Mickey and grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop.

“I never cheated on you! What the _fuck_ are you talking about?”

“Yeah, okay Pinocchio. Whatever you say.” Mickey tried to pull his arm away but Ian held onto his jacket sleeve for everything he was worth.

“Mickey...” Ian huffed out a confused laugh, “I have no idea what you mean. I _never_ cheated on you.”

Mickey rolled his eyes again. “Don’t fucking lie to me, ‘cause it ain’t gonna work. I _saw_ you and I _know_ you saw me right back.”

“Huh? Saw me what?” Ian asked, eyebrows scrunched together.

“With G.I. Jane. I saw you fucking him, after you got back from the club.” This time when Mickey tried pulling his arm free, Ian was powerless to stop him. His face must have shown the horror he felt at hearing the older man’s words, and when Mickey looked up at his face and their eyes met, it would have been impossible for Ian to hide his guilt even if he had wanted to.

Mickey laughed and shook his head. “I can’t believe I was gonna apologize!” he said, more to himself than to Ian. “That I was actually stupid enough to feel _bad_ about leaving you at the club like that. Fucking pathetic is what it is.”

Ian was dumbfounded. He’d had no idea that Mickey had seen him with Nick that night. He had assumed Mickey had moved out before they’d even gotten back from the club. It made sense though: why Mickey had cut him off so completely and left without a word; why Mandy had been so willing to keep Mickey’s info to herself, not to mention why she had been so cold with him at first. The worst part about it was that Ian didn’t remember anything about that night, especially anything after Mickey had left the Fairytale…

“I…” he began, but closed his mouth again.

“Exactly,” Mickey said, pressing his lips together angrily and nodding, nostrils flaring in the process. “I don’t know how you got into my house but if Fireball goes missing again, I’ll know exactly where to send my brothers,” he threatened.

“ _I didn’t steal your fucking cat, Mick!_ ” Ian shouted back, surprising both of them with how loud his voice was. He didn’t appreciate the threat, but now that he had started yelling, it was impossible to stop… Kind of like opening the floodgates.

“You broke up with me, Mickey. YOU DUMPED ME. You said you were fucking done. And you know what? I believed you. I believed that I’d pushed you too far. I believed that you didn’t feel the same way I felt, and that maybe I was just making it up in my fucked up head. So you know what I did? I got wasted. I tried to drink away my problems. And yeah, maybe I got too fucked up, and maybe I did some stuff I’m not proud of. I don’t even fucking remember anything that happened after I tried to kiss you.” He wiped at his eyes, determined not to fall apart in front of Mickey. The brunet was staring back at him with his perfected scowl, but he hadn’t walked away, so Ian continued.

“All I know for sure is that my best friend was there to pick up the pieces after you left me there, broken and alone. He made sure I didn’t leave with some disgusting pervert, which is what I probably _would_ have done. I woke up in my _own_ bed the next morning. He was there for me when I realized you had left, and he was there almost every day for the next month to make sure I didn’t do anything I would regret,” he said, finally stopping to take a breath. Mickey was still staring at him but the scowl had softened ever-so-slightly. He half noticed that Mickey had let the strap of the backpack slide down his shoulders and that the bag was now hanging at his side, hovering just a foot or so above the ground.

“Nick didn’t hold it against me that I got drunk and used him for sex. No, instead he came over and made sure I took my pills every day, distracted me so that I didn’t fall into a hole like my mom would have done, and kept me from losing my mind. When you left, it _broke_ me. I let myself fall in love with you and you just fucking disappeared like I was nothing, and…”

“What?” Mickey croaked.

“You fucking disappeared, asshole!” Ian repeated.

“No, before that. What’d you say?”

“It broke me when you left,” Ian told him, voice tired and defeated. Whatever burst of strength he’d gotten to tell Mickey how he felt had all been used up during his rant.

“Ughhh, no, you idiot,” Mickey said, rolling his eyes. “After that.”

Ian shook his head slightly in confusion and thought about what he had said. Everything had come out of him so quickly that he had no idea what Mickey was harping on. He did a quick mental rewind: he’d told him about how Nick had taken care of him and had made sure he didn’t fall off the wagon, then he’d said how broken he was after Mickey had left, and that he had let himself fall in love with Mickey only for him to disappear… Holy shit. _He admitted that he had let himself fall in love with Mickey_.

He quickly looked up at the man in front of him, the realization of his recent confession hot in his mind. “I mean, I didn’t mean that… I meant to say-”

He didn’t get to finish his lie. Mickey’s lips were on his, swallowing the words with an intensity Ian had never felt before. Mickey’s hands flew up to his face, one cradling the side of his jaw and the other pulling him down and closer from behind his neck, fingers tangled in his hair. The brunet sucked on Ian’s bottom lip before pushing his tongue into the younger boy’s mouth. He exhaled into Ian’s mouth and the warmth of his breath sent a chill through Ian’s body. He felt like Mickey was devouring every part of him, and he couldn’t be bothered to care.

Mickey forced him to take a few steps back until his back was pressed against the storefront behind him. He continued kissing him, relentlessly caressing him while pressing his body against Ian’s. He felt Mickey’s erection pressed against his thigh as the older man fervently rutted against him. Ian tried in vain to catch his breath but was helpless under Mickey’s passionate onslaught.

“M-m-” he tried, but couldn’t get it out. “M-Mick,” he huffed out on his second attempt.

Mickey stilled and pulled back just enough so that they could look at each other. Ian could see a glossy sheen over Mickey’s eyes and his face was covered in a combination of emotions that were clear to Ian: lust, relief, and even a bit of fear.

They both breathed heavily for a moment, taking in oxygen in thick gasps, while Ian tried to piece together what he wanted to say.

Mickey closed his eyes for a second. “Don’t fucking ruin it by talking,” he muttered, eliciting a chuckle from Ian.

“You do realize we’re outside, right? On the street?” he asked the older man. Granted, they weren’t in the South Side, but it still felt weird to Ian. “It’s not even dark yet,” he added.

Mickey’s eyes widened as he comprehended Ian’s words and he took a hurried look around to make sure no one had seen them.

“Come with me,” Ian said. He pushed Mickey away from him and knelt down to pick up the backpack with the cat before going back into the coffee house.

He heard Mickey groan from behind him. “I told you not to fucking ruin it by talking…”

Ian opened the door, accompanied by the now-familiar bell chime, and held it open for Mickey to walk through. He leaned down when Mickey walked past him and whispered, “bathroom,” into his ear, simultaneously nudging him forward in the direction of the restrooms at the rear of the shop.

Mickey suggestively raised his eyebrow as he stepped into the single bathroom and watched Ian lock the door behind them, leaning back against it. Ian held out the backpack and Mickey hastily grabbed it, placing it into the porcelain sink. Fireball let out a soft purr and Ian watched the cat’s owner pause, then decidedly put a hand in and pet it, telling it to just hold on a little while longer. Seeing Mickey be so affectionate towards the animal made Ian feel like there was a whole side to Mickey that he’d never seen before.

With an embarrassed smile, Mickey took his hand out of the bag and looked at Ian expectantly. It went without saying that they were both sorry, and Ian knew that Mickey was right when he said that talking about it would ruin it. They didn’t need words ‒ not when it was so clear to both men that this was what they wanted, what had been missing from their lives, keeping them from feeling whole. If Ian had any doubts, they vanished the moment he stepped close to Mickey, pressed his chest against the brunet’s and felt the warmth where their bodies connected.

“Take this off,” Ian ordered, indicating Mickey’s jacket. They simultaneously shrugged out of their respective coats. Ian placed his hands on Mickey’s shoulders, ran them down the brunet’s muscled arms. “Turn around,” he demanded with a groan. It had been _too_ long since he’d touched Mickey, too long since they’d been together, and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

Mickey spun around without protest. Ian picked his hands up and placed them palms-flat against the cool blue tiles that lined the wall of the restroom. He brought his face closer to Mickey’s ear and whispered, “Don’t move until I tell you to.” Mickey bit his lower lip with his teeth and nodded, closing his eyes and resting his forehead against the wall with a ragged sigh.

Ian grinned mischievously before he knelt on the bathroom floor and pulled Mickey’s pants and boxers all the way down to his ankles in one swift motion. He gently dragged his fingers up the backside of Mickey’s thighs and felt little goosebumps rise all along them. He got up to Mickey’s butt and grabbed two handfuls.

“God, you have such a perfect ass,” he said up to Mickey while he massaged the older man’s fleshy but firm cheeks in his palms. He let go and watched as they bounced right back to place ‒ the perfect bubble butt. He used his large hands to spread Mickey’s cheeks apart and wasted no time diving in, lapping at the small pink hole with his tongue. Mickey flinched at first but then visibly forced himself to relax for Ian, spreading his legs as far apart as the pants around his ankles would allow.

Ian went to work, eagerly licking at Mickey’s hole, prodding at the edges with his tongue and pressing them back, widening the gap a tiny bit at a time. He sucked on his own index finger to wet it before slowly adding it to the fray. Mickey moaned at the addition of the digit when it breached his entrance, but Ian didn’t push it in too far, only using it to facilitate the movements of his tongue as he tentatively thrust it into Mickey.

He felt the older man push back against him, urging him to go in deeper, so Ian gladly obliged. He pulled his hand away and licked his middle finger before returning it and pressing both in. Ian relented from licking so that he could push his fingers in deeper, gradually forcing them past Mickey’s tight muscles. He idly thought that it must have been a while since Mickey played with himself if he was so tense.

“Ugh, it’s been too fucking long,” Mickey said, echoing Ian’s thoughts, and the redhead involuntarily smiled.

“Tell me about it,” Ian muttered, palming at his neglected erection through his pants.

“So why don’t you hurry the fuck up and _do_ something about it?” Mickey suggested.

Ian ignored the taunt and instead continued working on Mickey’s ass, spreading his fingers and gently easing the brunet’s walls apart, occasionally adding more saliva with a well-placed lick. Once he was confident that Mickey was sufficiently prepped, Ian stood up and pressed his torso against Mickey’s back, forcing him to push harder against the wall while allowing his lower half to stick out. He wrapped one hand around Mickey’s waist and reached for his erection, grabbing the thick cock with his wet fingers and stroking it.

“You sure you’re ready?” Ian baited. He _knew_ Mickey was more than ready; he could tell by how hard his dick was and the sheer amount of precum dripping from its tip. Ian kissed at the side of Mickey’s neck, just under his ear, and the other man groaned again.

“I’m ready,” Mickey croaked out, but it sounded less like a statement and more like he was begging. “Fuck, m’ready…”

Ian grabbed Mickey by his shirt and pulled him away from the wall, directing him towards the toilet. He let go of the cotton and unbuttoned his own pants, letting them slip to his knees. “Bend over,” he instructed Mickey, who wasted no time in complying. He spread his legs and bent forward, bracing his arms against the toilet tank.

Ian hastily spat into his palm and slicked himself up. If he’d had any idea how their reunion was going to play out, he’d have brought lube, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He lined up his dick with Mickey’s wet hole and slowly pushed in, sighing as Mickey’s entrance first swallowed his head and then continued accepting more, until he was completely seated inside his lover.

“Fuck,” they both groaned, then laughed.

“Perfect... _fucking_.... ass...” Ian repeated, admiring the older man again and the way his dick was enveloped inside him. He grabbed at Mickey’s hips and used them as leverage to pull back before delivering a strong thrust all the way back in to the hilt. He continued his deliberate movements, relishing the tightness around him each time he slipped back in.

Ian was on cloud nine. He didn’t remember sex with Mickey being this good before. A small part of him whispered that it was because he didn’t know Mickey loved him back before, but the rest of him told that small part to shut up.

“I missed you,” he said, unable to keep it in. He didn’t expect a reply from Mickey; he only wanted to tell the brunet how he felt, to let him know that this wasn’t just them wildly fucking in a dirty bathroom after months of being apart. The room was silent, but for the sounds of their bodies slamming together and the repeated ding of the porcelain tank as it rocked back against the wall in a steady beat.

Mickey reached a hand back and grabbed onto Ian’s where it held him at his waist. “Me too,” he whispered, giving Ian a squeeze. That was all the confirmation Ian needed. He tightened his grip around Mickey and pounded him with everything he had. When he felt that he was close, he reached around and tugged at Mickey’s dick while mercilessly fucking into him. Mickey’s arms shook with the effort of supporting their combined weight against the toilet but he managed to brace himself long enough for Ian to cum inside him, quickly followed by his own orgasm.

Ian all but collapsed onto Mickey’s sweaty back without realizing how exhausted the other man was too. Mickey’s arms gave out and they both fell forward with a laugh, stopping only inches before slamming face-first into the wall thanks to Mickey stepping forward and regaining his balance. They straightened up and pulled their pants up, but were in no hurry to leave. Ian sank to the floor on top of his jacket, back leaning against the door. Mickey followed suit.

“So, how much is this reward I was promised?” Ian asked after a few minutes.

“What reward?” Mickey looked at him like he was on something.

“Your ad said there was a reward for returning your cat. There he is, safe and sound,” Ian pointed up at the bag still seated safely in the sink, “so I want my reward.”

“Fuck you.”

“Didn’t I already?” Ian teased, laughing too much at his own terrible pun. He could have sworn he heard Mickey chuckle a bit too.

“You’re fucking crazy if you think you’re getting rewarded for using my cat as your pawn to get me back.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Ian asked, raising his eyebrows while grinning.

“Whatever, man. Fucking cat-napper thinks he’s getting a prize,” Mickey grumbled, shaking his head.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mick. I already _got_ my prize,” he said, leaning forward to kiss Mickey sweetly on the lips. “Now come home with me so I can thank you some more.”

He got up and began looking for his clothes, but Mickey hadn’t budged. “Since when do _you_ need more time?” Ian wondered.

“Mandy said you already got a new roommate,” Mickey said, avoiding Ian’s eyes.

“Fuck you if you think I’m gonna let you pull that ‘we’re-just-roommates’ shit again,” Ian told him with a smile. He held his hand out, and Mickey huffed out a laugh before he took it, letting Ian pull him to his feet. “Besides, if my roommate has a problem with me bringing my boyfriend over, he can just move the fuck out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, thanks for sticking with me. as always, your feedback is appreciated. <3


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